Reviews of the Cactus Flower
The album is out on Friday the 20th of August 2021. On Spotify Itunes and other online platforms. CDs available here
"Sitting right there in the tradition of British singer-songwriters like Paul Weller and Ray Davies, The Cactus Flower is an album from the heart, the head and the home.
You can always tell when words and music come together from the same creator – here you can find notes from a lifetime – with hope, scepticism, humour, joy and love too. Mark Wallis performs his own material with fulsome, storytelling lyrics, while leaving space for his memorable dexterity on guitar and keys.
This is an album that deserves an audience. It’s not a blast - it’s a prevailing breeze that you hear in the trees, that makes you look up and then carries you along, all the way from the banks of the Thames to the soil of France.
Sing out cousin, the World is ready for you.”
Lester Dinnie
"As you know I say the first, instinctive things that occur to me. I also like lists.
Mark Wallis is the most natural musician I’ve ever met, the review of the album is in no order at all as you would expect:
Roger McGuinn
Prescient
Strings
Crisp production
Reassuringly rooted in the 70’s
Doll by Doll
12 string Rickenbacker
Hammond organ
Wicked Heart - genius metaphor
Above all wistful, contented and a reminder of happy days.
I really like this record
Lastly if you don’t like it just Fuck Off"
Simon Benham
"The songs on The Cactus Flower bear witness to an eclectic and refreshing range of influences, from the Byrds and the Cure through to Michael Kiwanuka. Banks of the Thames is pleasantly soulful and mellow, while ‘Roxy Cinema’ is nicely upbeat. ‘My Wicked Heart’ seizes the opportunity to remind us of the duplicity of the charlatan currently masquerading as our prime minister, while ‘The Soil of France’ is mournful and strangely moving. The reflective ‘Write That Song’ avoids the trap of an excess of self-consciousness, and it’s here that I detect echoes of Kiwanuka. This is an album of moods and contrasts, and the subtlety of the writing becomes more apparent with every listen. Well worth a spin"
Jeremy Page
"It was like playing an undiscovered bootleg of Mark Knopfler with The Happy Monday’s"
Martin Wheatley