Queen: Threefold Identity. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Legends never fade away, they are just forever always in our sight, never releasing or letting go of the magnetic hold they have over our hearts or our souls.

Even when the studio albums finally cease being recorded, when the time comes for them to call it a day, when even the upsetting reality of Time’s passing shadows breaks the band apart due to a member leaves for the next adventure, there is always the opportunity for the fan to delve into the new release thanks to old gigs having been recorded from the radio or surreptitiously by the lone wolf at gigs who took advantage of weak security and then became the hero of the hour when those tapes became legitimate and sacred.

Queen: Threefold Identity. Album Review. full post

(505 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Tripwire: Faceplant. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Salisbury is known for many things, its looming gothic cathedral, the birthplace of Star Ward legend Anthony Daniels, Lord of the Rings star John Rhys-Davies, the incredible writer C.J. Tudor, its proximity to the neolithic Stonehenge and the pre-medieval society of Stonehenge and being the setting in a fictionalised form of the city in the novels Colony and Underneath.

Tripwire: Faceplant. E.P. Review. full post

(369 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Thirteen O’ Clock. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Will Chitty, Indigo Griffiths, Dan Starkey, Sophie Thompson.

A return of a foe thought defeated is always an occasion in which the listener of the Big Finish audios finds intriguing. There is after all always the need to delve further into the relationship between aggressor and the complex mind of the Doctor, and never more so when it one that is fought with the unshakable terror of what can be seen as the myth or the fairytale given corporeal form.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Thirteen O’ Clock. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

(439 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Ady Johnson: Under Gainsborough Skies. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

What lays beyond our vision is ours only to speculate over, we can hope, anticipate, even deliver inner peace with hopeful faith guiding us towards the place where memories are restored, where our life’s decisions, the punishments, the subject of our own mortality are reconciled and placed before us with the care and attention of an artist weaving beauty and narrative together in some kind of poetic tapestry.

Ady Johnson: Under Gainsborough Skies. Album Review. full post

(398 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Robert Shearman: The Chimes Of Midnight. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The dark reveals more about our psyche than most of us are comfortable revealing, and when it comes with the pressure of Time adding its weight to the moment, that when The Chimes Of Midnight strike what we see are the ghosts that never made it through the day but somehow remain with us, their presence, their actions, their feelings, the moment they left us in tears as their last breath is subdued, then echoed as the clock reminds us that another day is about to begin…the darkness always wins because midnight is a far more disturbing time for memories than its counterpart of midday.

Robert Shearman: The Chimes Of Midnight. Book Review. full post

(486 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Spiderman: Brand New Day. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Mark Ruffalo, Jon Bernthal, Jacob Batalon, Sadie Sink, Florence Pugh, Liza Colón-Zayes, Tramell Tillman, Marisa Tomei, Naomi Watts, Michael Mando, Oliva Booth-Ford, Marvin Jones III.

There is a reason why Spiderman remains one of Stan Lee and Stephen Ditko’s most endearing creations, why the character in any form is consistently one of the most loved; far beyond the quick wit and smart mouth, more than just the knowledge that the pair who conceived him placed him at the heart of Marvel’s growing empire, it was because he was one of the first to have the troubles of the world heaped upon his shoulders as mothing more than a boy, he was someone that the readers could associate with because he carried traumatic pain from the get go, and he became someone that all readers would want to be.

Spiderman: Brand New Day. Film Review. full post

(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Durutti Column: Renascent. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It could be argued that by listening to, seeing, or actively taking part in art, the emotion experienced can lead to what is felt as a kind of rebirth, that first time we sing either something of our own creation or just projecting a few words into the air that surrounds us of that which has once caught our attention, the moment we step on stage and handle with care the words that frame an expression or break another’s heart, that is the moment we undergo a kind of transformation, a first breath in which the soul becomes more than a lump of clay, it becomes active and human.

The Durutti Column: Renascent. Album Review. full post

(387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Ruth Parry: Five Shadows. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Almost 140 years on from the terrifying events in heart of London’s East End, the question that still haunts the soul of anyone with a conscious, anyone who seeks to understand how such evil could exist, is why? That why, that question in the shadows that dares raise its voice against the so called supremacy of the Victorian era, that highlights the sheer gall of the upper class as they waged war on the poor, the destitute, women, children, and all who didn’t fit into their image of a perfect gentile society, never becomes fully answered because everybody wants to know who, always the perpetrator and never the reason.

Ruth Parry: Five Shadows. Book Review. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Roberta Smith: Humdrum Five. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It might seem like a sense of discordance when we think of pathos and humour as being emotionally tied, aligned by words of opportunity and direct opposition, but tragedy and time are more than friends, they are the Muse to which we seek a truth, that everything in life can be found to inform, enlighten, and provide comfort…pathos and suffering, humour and wit as one.

Roberta Smith: Humdrum Five. E.P. Review. full post

(323 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

The Crow Girl, Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Eve Myles, Katherine Kelly, Clara Ruggaard, Victoria Hamilton, Elliot Edusah, Raphael Sowole, Karen Ascoe, Lu Corfield, Michael Lumsden, Lee Boardman, Peter De Jersey.

The second series of The Crow Girl, adapted from Erik Axl Sund’s riveting novel, is one that pushes the watcher into the realms of disassociation, of the complexity of multiple personality, and whilst the first series was unabashed in its portrayal, the second is one where the sheer cognitive struggle of holding such memories and demons in the mind is powerfully, robustly, presented as DCI Jeanette Kilburn closes down on the killer but also finds her own mind is questioned as her actions in the face of lust and abandonment cause her to neglect the obvious truth.

The Crow Girl, Series Two. Television Review. full post

(421 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)