Leafing through the pages of the Metro newspaper today on the train, I saw my ugly mug staring out at me – alongside a review of my new album, We Can Make The World Stop.

The review was written by the Metro’s Ben East, and since I can’t link to an online version, I’ll repeat it here for those who missed it first time around:

It’s easy to forget that between helping to found (and now being Life President of) AFC Liverpool, organising the Working Class Music Festival and being a voracious blogger and political activist, Alun Parry is in fact a singer-songwriter by trade.

Fully signed up to the union of message-laden, storytelling acoustica, his latest gig doubles as the launch party for his new album, We Can Make The World Stop, out this week.

Surprisingly, it’s just his second record, but certainly a step up from Corridors Of Stone.

Sure, it has the folky protest song he’s so good at down pat – particularly during the pubby chant-along knees-up of 1919 Irish tale The Limerick Soviet – but there’s also a humour and modernity here; Princess Deborah is a sideways look at the perils of chat-room obsessions.

It’s not an album that will propel Parry to wider fame, but sometimes that isn’t what it’s all about. Parry is the heart and soul of Liverpool, and long may that remain the case.