Breathing Space, The Intake Club, Mansfield

Olivia Sparnenn

In CaroleBristol's review of Mostly Autumn at Gloucester, she remarked that it would have been good for backing singer Olivia Sparnenn to have a bigger role.

In addition to being Mostly Autumn's backing singer, Olivia also fronts Breathing Space, a band she put together with Mostly Autumn keyboard player Iain Jennings in 2005. What was originally a side project took on a life of it's own when Iain left Mostly Autumn at the beginning of 2006, but they have continued recording and touring even after Iain rejoined his old band at the beginning of last year.

Over the past couple of years Olivia Sparnenn has got better and better as a vocalist and frontwoman. Indeed, she auditioned and made the shortlist for the gig with Finnish symphonic metallers Nightwish, and I still think she's better than the singer who finally did get the job.

Many fans of the band were saddened at the unexpected departure of Breathing Space's guitarist Mark Rowen at the beginning of the year due to good old 'musical differences' (I'll say no more). His replacement was none other than Mostly Autumn's second guitarist, Liam Davidson.

Liam Davidson

Changing just one band member has transformed the band's sound far more that I'd expected. Mark Rowen's economical jazz-tinged playing was a major element of Breathing Space's sound, and Liam has a very different style. With Mostly Autumn he's always very much in the background, but I've always thought he's a far better guitarist than many people realise. Given the chance in the spotlight shows just how good he can playing lead. He doesn't try to copy Mark's solos note-for-note, instead using the basic structure as a template for solos of his own.

The result is a far rawer and rockier band, which actually suits Olivia Sparnenn's powerful vocal style very well. Many of the big soaring ballads and jazz-rock jams that epitomised the album "Coming Up for Air" have been retired from the set in favour of guitar-driven hard rock numbers, turning the overall energy level of the set up several notches. A surprise was the Mostly Autumn standard "Never the Rainbow", which I'd not heard Breathing Space play live before.

The set included several new songs from the forthcoming album "Below the Radar". The title track has been in the setlist for a while, but the standout of the new numbers has to be the encore, "Questioning Eyes", a huge soaring and emotionally moving epic in the same league as Iain's Mostly Autumn classics "The Gap Is Too Wide" or "Carpe Diem".

It's a pity a band this good isn't better known; they deserve far better than playing to less than a hundred people in a small club in Mansfield.