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Captain Of The Lost Waves: Success In Failure. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We are urged, almost dictated to in no small measure, to believe that success is the be all and end all, the point of human existence is to reach the top of the tree, look down with commitment and contentment and almost be smug in our satisfaction for winning in the game of life.

Status Quo: The Early Years 1966-69. Box-Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

History could have been so different, the sound of the three bar blues delivered with a frantic pace and the opening slot of the televised spectacle of Live Aid would have been another band’s preserve; for in a world of what ifs and maybes the memory or discovery of what Status Quo are to many might well have been wiped clean and forgotten, the potential of the double denim rock and one of the most endearing and enduring bands lost to another plane of existence.

Miss Scarlet And The Duke. Series 4. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kate Phillips, Stuart Martin, Evan McCabe, Cathy Belton, Simon Ludders, Felix Scott, Paul Bazely, Tim Chipping, Stephen Boxer, Tim Downie, Matija Zivkovic, Florence Roberts, Lu Corfield, Igor Borojevic, Al Weaver, Rachel Dale, Ognjen Nikola Radulovic, Curtis Kantsa, Oliver Chris, Katherine Manners, Jonathan Rhodes, Laura Marcus, Antonio Scarpa, Ivan Tomic, Paul Kennedy, Matthew Steer, Alexandra Hannant.

Keith Thompson: Enigmatic Blues. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Like moths to the flame, we search for the enigmatic without concern to how we will react when we get to close to the fire within.

The compelling resurgence of Blues in the 21st Century is a gift for the music lover, as once again it offers the listener a remarkable insight into the human condition of melancholy with passion and honesty, and capture the enigmatic as it happens, as it plays wonderful havoc with our senses and our soul.

10cc: Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Gig Review. (2024)

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Ever the consummate professional, Graham Gouldman requires no introduction, the music he and the rest of 10cc created is understood from the first bar, and universally enjoyed; and once more the band of merry, and talented groove setters rolled into Liverpool as part of their Ultimate Ultimate Tour, and the result was one that was the sense of perfection, sweet, accomplished, complete and exact proof of the legendary status of the music, and of the longevity of spirit of those that created them.

Ma Polaine’s Great Decline: Molecules. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Those attractive forces that bind us together, a wicked game they conceive when they know we will fall for the art that comes our way.

Ma Polaine’s Great Decline sees the Somerset pairing of Beth Packer and Clint Hough return to the music lover’s attention with their brand new studio album, Molecules, and it is with ever open arms and fondness for the uniquely sounding artists that the public will offer for the spiritual heroes of the dark introspection and commitment of the mix and jazz and blues/folk one of joy; those attractive forces once more in the hands of masters of story telling with song form.

John Meed: A Sudden Rain. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We all love a storyteller, their words and means of delivery are at the heart of the essence of humanity; and yet we perhaps don’t give them all the credit they deserve, only venerating themselves when the emotions fall, in the audience’s mind, like A Sudden Rain that comes out of the ether and refreshes all it touches, turning parched ground to a forest of green, idyllic, lush grass.

Doctor Who: Stranded 2. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Rebecca Root, Tom Price, Tom Baker, Oscar Batterham, Stewart Clarke, Jeremy Clyde, Jon Culshaw, Joel James Davison, Annabelle Dowler, Ewan Goddard, Avita Jay, Anjli Shaw-Parker, Homer Todiwala, Venice Van Someren, Amina Zia.

Time and memory are not always compatible bed follows. Quite often the two fight each other for the supremacy of the human experience, one taking from the other without a second thought, almost at war in terms of progression.

The Marlow Murder Club. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, Natalie Dew, Mark Frost, Holli Dempsey, Rita Tushingham, Niall Costigan, Ian Barritt, Daniel Lapaine, Juliet Howland, Phill Langhorne, Sophia Ally, Tijan Sarr, Molly Hanson, Phillipa Peak, Teagan Imani, Matthew Bates, Ella Kenion, Rufus Wright, Umit Ulgen, Rishi Nair, Ethan Quinn, Amelia Valentina Pankhania, Yiannis Vassilakis, Mark Fleishmann, Matt Green, Edward Howells, Sherise Blackman, Eleanor Nawal, Tristan Sturrock, Kim Wall.

When strangers on a train conspire to murder, what the universe experiences is an unbalance, a sense of unhinged instability that such souls could act as each other’s alibi to cause harm and confound the restoration of balance.

Buffalo Skinners: Picking Up What You’re Putting Down. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We lay a trail in the hope that someone comes along and gathers the signal and instruction we leave hanging in the ether so that it may be translated, so that we know in our heart our message has been heard.

Picking Up What You’re Putting Down is the understanding that we are more than our own shadows, we are the means of reception to others to have their thoughts interpreted, to send their voice onwards, and like a CB  radio being used in the darkness of the home of a teenager in Britain during the 70s and 80s, the sounds we hear and notice are exotic and deeply engrained in a world once out of our reach.