Ah, yes. A live album from Jason Webley is just what we need to start the year well—and In This Light is pretty tasty stuff. Opening with the intimate From the Morning before diving into rousing classic Dance While the Sky Crashes Down, the record captures the quasi-apocalypto-religious experience of attending a Webley gig.

It’s impossible not to turn the volume right up by track three (There’s Not a Step We Can’t Take That Does Not Bring Us Closer), when the strings and audience-chorus kick in. Close your eyes and Webley’s before you, accordion in hand, hat defying gravity, making the stage shake, and you—there, in your office chair, with your unexpected Thursday morning package from Seattle—you are feeling very, very good.

Oh, hullo there. Sorry—music trance.

My favourite song on the album is the title track, which features some delicious violin moments (Timb Harris) and swelling vocals. Catchy tune Saviour—one I’d never heard before—is another track it’s safe to put on repeat. And, as a final comment, it’s great to have the full Drinking Song spiel if only to have a “very simple, very effective, and extremely economical method” of getting sloshed at one’s beck and call.

Mr Webley’s taking the year off, and there are only 1111 copies of In This Light (and I have number 0444)—so  godspeed! Buy the physical album at www.jasonwebley.com or listen for free/purchase mp3s at Jason’s Bandcamp.