By Rowan Lees

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The Route 66 Movement is a grand project, there is no mainstay line-up, the music will pass over from one person/group to another without mention of names, and this original EP serves too as a humanitarian effort in partnership with Meal-A-Day.

The music itself has a classic singer-songwriter style delivered entirely with voice and guitar, both by the founder of the Route 66 Movement, Michael Ash. The format does not tire in the way many projects of the same category can, by contrast, Ash employs his guitar and voice with ingenuity enough to keep the listener’s ear. Songs like ÔÇÿLive In YouÔÇÖ are a testament to this ingenuity and contrast of pace, upbeat strummed chords pivoting into a brief rest period before re-gathering energy and leaping into a virtuosic guitar solo. This buoyancy is complemented with the more sombre and more simplistic tones of songs such as ÔÇÿForbidden LoveÔÇÖ, an affecting and personal reflection of a personÔÇÖs relationship with a higher being.

To say nothing of the religious orientation here would be to ignore the centre point of the EP, the lyrics centring as they do on God and the strength of belief. However, even without a religious belief, I have personally found plenty of beauty in the few songs presented here, in fact, a lot of that beauty coming from the way the beautiful way the subject is dealt with. The EP has left me with definite excitement for wherever the Route 66 Movement may travel next, I am a follower!