"Since Najma Akhtar released her ground-breaking fusion album Qareeb in the late 1980s, the sounds of the Indian sub-continent have become a steadily more familiar fixture in western pop. Mixes of tablas and trance beats, Bollywood strings and synths, is now part of the musical landscape. The pure, soaring arc of Najma's voice remains beyond emulation, however, Vivid provides her vocal talents with their most adventurous settings yet, twisting together the traditions of east and west in new and unexpected ways, marrying Arabic rhythms, modal tunings, and western classical leanings. The record results from a collaboration between Najma, who wrote it's lyrics and melodies, and Richard Grassby-Lewis, whose background in film music is evident in Vivid's cinematic atmospheres. Both are artists whose grasp of music is global. Searching for a tag to describe their distinctive sound, Najma and Richard alighted on "Indian Gothic". It's a name which fits perfectly; like gothic art and architecture, the album is complex, graceful and magical. Sung sometimes in English, sometimes in Urdu, its' songs evoke moods full of longing, regret, escape and confrontation, yet somehow retain a spirit of hope. Vivid is twenty-first century gothic." - Neil Spencer (The Observer Reveiw)