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)

Rob Grant And Andrew Marshall: Red Dwarf – Titan. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For the fan of the cult television show Red Dwarf anything that comes along which further expands the absurdist universe can only be one of good fortune; and even with the passing of one of the original creators, Rob Grant, earlier on the year, the fact that a brand new novel baring his name, alongside Andrew Marshall, has been brought into existence is enough to have, as the great Ken Dodd would exclaim, “Is one that exercises the chuckle muscle.”

Rob Grant And Andrew Marshall: Red Dwarf – Titan. Book Review. full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Central Intelligence: Series Three. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Kim Cattrall, Kelsey Grammer, Johnny Flynn, Elena Delia, Donald Sage Mackay, Tim Ahern, Carlyss Peer, Jennifer Armour, David Menkin, Christopher Ragland, Joseph Balderrama, Akie Kotabe, Nettie Chickering, Laurel Lefkow, Jason Watkins, Rob Benedict, Tyreke Leslie, Vivek Maden, Richard Southgate, Ian Porter, Lily Lefkow, David Menkin, Roy McCrerey, Julee Cerda, Walles Hamonde, Rachael Stirling, Philipe Bosher, Clay Zackery, Ben Cura, David Duchovny, Aaron Teoh, Sotty Pong, Kerry Shale.

Central Intelligence: Series Three. Radio Drama Review. full post

(520 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

The Mike Jacoby Electric Trio: Welcome To The Family. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Upbeat and dramatic, without losing itself to grandeur or flippancy; that is the sense of urgent cool delivered by The Mike Jacoby Electric Trio as they blend a sharp view of modern Americana with edgy Country melody and the fierce boundary smashing grit of 90s realism in the exultant clash that is Welcome To The Family.

The Mike Jacoby Electric Trio: Welcome To The Family. Album Review. full post

(428 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Kate MacLeod’s Mind The Gap: Home Brewed. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For the masses this side of the Atlantic, West Virginia is perhaps a remanent of the old romantic notion of what the United States of America was once a representation of, a state carved out of its own seceded ideals from something larger and because it wanted its own vision, its truth to be plain and easily forged. Like the revolution guns that started on Boston Common and the and the anger of tax imposed by a grander authority, what West Virginia means to those who live without this purpose cannot be easily defined but the music that holds the beauty together is one of unshakable cool and distinct authority.

Kate MacLeod’s Mind The Gap: Home Brewed. Album Review. full post

(426 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Professor And The Madman: Dreamworld. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

A Dreamworld becomes reality when we find something that pricks the bubble of indifference and we see the blood of its creator spill into our hands as inspiration, the ideas, the flow, the passion, and perhaps the madness becomes alive; no longer delivered in forced rainbow overtones, no glorious technicolour, just a statement of intent, of powerful, and fascinating, direction.

Six years after the acclaimed Séance was released, the quartet that make up the renowned Professor And The Madman return with a gloriously weaved recording that not only smacks the uneven layering of indifference till it blurts and tantrum induced meltdown occur, but it also places the trivial and cold irrelevance into the bin of life, grinning with positivity as it does so.

Professor And The Madman: Dreamworld. Album Review. full post

(378 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Harsh: Feels. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

All you want as a fan of music, no matter the genre is two things…one that the music you grew up loving continues to be relevant, to play a significant part of culture and able to critique society and bind it in equal measure, and that it progresses, that it doesn’t stay routinely stuck in the same tropes and stagnates to the point where it becomes a broken cliché capable of only whispering sweet nothings of nostalgia and memories that fade in time as you come closer to drawing a final wistful breath.

Harsh: Feels. Album Review. full post

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