Album review : MARTIN PAGE – The First And Last Freedom

May 28th, 2026 by brianmc

IroningBoard Records [Release date 01.04.26]

On his 11th album now, successful songwriter (‘These Dreams’, ‘We Built This City’, ‘King Of Wishful Thinking’ and many more) Martin Page’s softly softly approach to his own material remains untouched.

He tells us : “the first four songs of this album were written initially for a compassionate cause: to inspire, encourage and heal the spirit of a friend with a terminal illness.”

Helping him on his journey are a host of guest musicians, most notably Jack Hues of Wang Chung and The Blue Nile’s Paul Joseph Moore. Class indeed.

Those first four tracks:
A short, sweet, acoustic guitar intro leads us into ‘Courage’, which could easily have been the album’s title track. In this opener, Page sees courage in the actions of men and woman at war, no matter the conflict, no matter the rights and wrongs.
And, once again, it sees Page to be a gifted writer of lyrics and melodies.
It also captures the thought that when you have a well-written song, then less is more.

There’s real swell of romanticism to ‘Fade’. It’s artless. It’s joyous, it has moments of great beauty and poignancy, and neatly leads us into the Beatlish ‘To Feel’.
Page’s strong emotional connection culminates in him reaching for salvation. ‘Day by day, hour by hour, your hand in mine, we’ll find the power’. It’s a moving admission of what it is to be human, grafted on to a sinuous tune.

The rest of the set is marked by the more controlled, pop-centric material that became part of Page’s vocabulary and soon became his focus.

Early on in his solo career, Page found a way to craft a distinctive softly softly rock sound all of his own. His lush but often spare tunes are packed with emotion and vulnerability. They’re wrapped in such intoxicating melodies that you can’t help but be drawn in.

The perfectly tailored second half of the album see his atmospheric touch do much of the heavy lifting. There’s a sense of melancholy to the celtic flavoured ‘Eve’; ‘Black Sun’s sophisticated rhythms are a neat flipside to ‘Little Bird’s funk lite, and so on.

The First And Last Freedom is a quiet, honest goodbye, music that will remember his friend well. ****1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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THE SKBS The Prying Eye (indie)
AGAINST THE CURRENT Dead Man Walking (indie)
ICONIC Tears Keep On Falling (Frontiers)

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