Monthly Archives: April 2014

After What Comes Before. Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: David Cartwright, Sam Berrill, Alex Monk.

Not many evenings starts with three scientists arguing over the relative value of being able to extract the thought processes and the sometimes synaptic misfires in which hold the key to every person’s desires and ills. However Manic Chord Theatre, by intelligent word play and the same insane careful design attributed to the formation of random events that make life in the Universe possible, are able to show in 55 minutes just exactly what happens when you begin to think outside of the box in their play After What Comes Before.

After What Comes Before. Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Batman: Haunted Knight, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It’s hard to imagine any superhero in the Marvel Universe having the same type of intrigue and fascination with Halloween as D.C. Comic’s biggest hero Batman does. Indeed across every spectrum and genre no other title perhaps lends itself more to the crazy upside world of the night than the Dark Knight.  In a collection of three different one shot Halloween special stories by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, under the one title of Batman: Haunted Knight, the complicated relationship he has with the day is one that captures the imagination but also the fixation, the near fixation he has in dealing with those who bring harm to Gotham City is at near psychosis levels.

Batman: Haunted Knight, Graphic Novel Review. full post

(495 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

John Bassett, Unearth. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

For a musician who creates the most beautiful sounding compositions with KingBathmat, the chance to really let go and release an album of his own work must have always been nagging at the back of his head and now John Bassett has the chance to impress completely with his debut album Unearth.

Impressed might be too strong a word to bandy around, it gives rise to the thought of confetti being thrown at a wedding or celebration or the first sight of fireworks that cling to the midnight sky high above Sydney as the clocks click over into a new year, perhaps captivated and enthralled would be better, for that is the feeling you get when listening to Unearth for the first and subsequent times.

John Bassett, Unearth. Album Review. full post

(392 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

KynchinLay, Drink Me. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

For those of a certain disposition who still find music on the radio in which to drop everything and sit down in a mind boggled sigh of exultation, KynchinLay’s new E.P. Drink Me is a remembrance of days when the likes of Tommy Vance or the great John Peel would play magician and startle you with a set of songs so good that you just knew the world, despite its woes, would carry on. For surely the Universe would not destroy the planet just yet; especially when the vast majority haven’t had the pleasure of taking in one more amazing track.

KynchinLay, Drink Me. E.P. Review. full post

(417 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado, Too Many Roads. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There could well be Too Many Roads for a person to walk along, so many distractions; so many reasons in which the straight path you choose from A to B means that occasionally that deviation offered you goes untouched, unsighted and the pleasure unheard.

Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado, Too Many Roads. Album Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: White Ghosts. Big Finish Audio Review. 3.02.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Virginia Hey, Bethan Walker, Gbemisola Ikumelo, James Joyce.

What terrors are there in the dark? The imagination seizes upon the sparks of the obscured, the unseen threat waiting in the shadows to maim or do injury to and whilst we can turn on a light, make our way to a bright area in which to calm the nerves, what if the light brings the terror closer to your door? What if the light actually accelerates the peril and causes more destruction

Doctor Who: White Ghosts. Big Finish Audio Review. 3.02. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Brasy, Brasy Live. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Life is about discovery at all times, the moment it doesn’t then either you have become the modern epitome of a fulfilled Renaissance person or more likely life has ceased to be one in which you crave and the only journey you take is between work, television and bed.

The rich harmonies of Polish group Brassy though are something to take great cheer from and with their stunning album, Brasy Live, the journey can take an unexpected twist and causing a deviation which makes you look at the scenery in a much more positive way.

Brasy, Brasy Live. Album Review. full post

(476 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Christina Skjolberg, Come and Get It. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The U.K. holds Joanne Shaw Taylor very close to its Rock/Blues heart, America does the same with Beth Hart and seemingly from out of the cultured wilds of Norway, Christina Skjolberg is ready to cause the same natural sentiments across Scandinavia and beyond and if her debut album Come and Get it is anything to go by.

Christina Skjolberg, Come and Get It. Album Review. full post

(445 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Roses Aren’t Red…

The roses I always offered you were never meant to be red

but the prick of the dull knife against my skin stained

the delicate petals and clung tightly to the thorns in my side until

Gravity forced them loose and you watched them drop to the floor.

 

The roses made you feel alive, and yet the blade cut into me deeper

than any barbed carefully placed slash I could ever imagine presenting

and only sheer will stopping me from being a stain

more permanent than a drop of blood limply jumping from a thorn.

Roses Aren’t Red… full post

(189 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Shetland: Dead Water. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Douglas Henshall, Steven Robertson, Alison O’ Donnell, Mark Bonnar, Julie Graham, Alex Norton, Clive Russell, Nina Sosanya, Leanne Best, Marnie Baxter, Steven Cree, Anne Kidd, Kari Corbett, David Hayman, Erin Armstrong, Stewart Porter, Gerda Stevens.

Shetland: Dead Water. Television Review. full post

(457 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)