The Duel has been the main vehicle for the melodies and lyrics that fall out of the woman that is Tara Rez and, as the band name suggests, was born out of a struggle between two major forces to reach a common flashpoint: musical perfection, a twisted corporation. That other force was Andy Thierum and the initial explosion was in 1998…it’s now 2024. But Andy was ill, and it wasn’t until nine albums later that he was diagnosed with MS, explaining a lot of general misbehaviour. Colliding together for one final album with the fitting title of Waging War in 2016, the cataclysmic cycle was eating itself, heading towards a brilliant, if totally underrated climax. So, what then? That species was extinct, what now? A female warrior fighting for air in what is still a man’s world. Unable to use the...