"Bit of a tonic for the troops here, from the opening 'Pearshaped' the warmth and sheer heart just infuse the whole thing, yeah, even the starkly observed 'Your Dad Sells Lighters'. Musically, its almost a swing kind of thing and pretty much a light and bouncy bit of kit with totally ace guitars, pedal steel and jaw harps, but it remains solidly English, northern England. All the same 'Pearshaped' is a warm, wry record with eleven beautiful observations of the human condition and the inhuman conditions some of us live in. I defy anyone to listen to 'Shipping News' and refuse to buy this record." - Unpeeled
"The startlingly accomplished singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist Neville Clay has the happy knack of stumbling across his muse in the unlikeliest of places, from the school-staff room to the market stall, from the health-clinic to the betting-shop, down at the chippy and up at the call centre. Football, lottery scratch-cards, the Animal Liberation Front, council flats, lager, Stanley knives and mail-order catalogues; the very clay, as it were, that forms the building blocks of English suburbia - its the medium which is the message here. His caustic, trenchant and bitingly witty observations are the musical equivalent of a Mike Leigh play; sparse, sad, cynical, frightening, endlessly amusing - and occasionally extraordinarily beautiful. Be Gentle With Yourself, Serendipity and Shipping News are like unexpected works of art found amidst scenes of dereliction, and at his best Clay conjurs up breathtaking poetical couplets out of the dust left behind: Theres nothing I want to take from her except the eczema on her hands. She drinks tea and smokes Bensons and thats all I understand(from Staff Room). File somewhere between Michael Chapman and Pat Orchard, but make a note of where you put it, because listening is an education in itself." - Ptolomic Terrascope
