They buried me this morning and by all accounts it was a very moving service. The memory of my mother’s loud wailing echoed around the dirty soil, infiltrating its every pore and molecule, bypassing every worm and mole that had stopped and bowed their heads in perhaps a kind of animalistic worship, the kind that at some point would turn into the possibility of food and further enriching of the mud that would surround the casket.
Yearly Archives: 2014
Vargas Blues Band, From The Dark. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Arguably the most seductive of sounds, aside from an engrossing violin being played under a dimly lit street lamp as it serenades a lover from the tender arms of Morpheus, is that of the guitar. The finally polished wood in tune with a good set of fingers and a lung busting pocket of air can sweep a person off their feet and lead them down a road to expectant, gratified glee. In the hands of a master it’s like being kissed by an angel who has just found out that life is meant to be lived and not just waiting on a command, in the hands of Javier Vargas and the Vargas Blues Band it s like finding out that angel has been living next door for years and has had a crush on you forever.
Colosseum, Time On Our Side. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Time asks nothing more of us than we can actually do, it might cajole or urge with a hint of bitterness in its rasping, fog like voice to do more and more, but in the end Time has a habit of letting us know that the job is done and to think back on all we have created or even regretfully destroyed. Like the fact that no poem is ever finished, no piece of art is ever truly completed; Time to always add one more note to the ever changing puzzle before us.
A Forest Of Stars, A Shadowplay for Yesterdays. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Perhaps not since the early days of the British band Sabbat, has an album left such an indelible mark on the conscious of the fan of the genre such as the 2012 release of A Shadowplay for Yesterdays by the quite sublime A Forest Of Stars.
The unnerving heartbeat, slow, methodical and direct, is at times more frightening than the racing pulse of a heart out of control. It doesn’t just signify a calmness of spirit, it can also be a measure of manipulation, of a domination of mind over emotion and in that the quietness of breathing in the dark can induce a clammy sensation on the skin to rise and the hackles ready to sharpen at what might come next.
Deacon Blue, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2014).
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Deacon Blue performing at the Echo Arena, December 2014. Photograph courtesy of David Munn Photography.
From here on the days start to get longer, the country may just be staring into abyss that is the cold and potentially snow bound days of winter but at least there is light starting to creep back into the 24 hour clock as the balance of Time tips slowly back in favour of being able to be out of the house. However, the shortest day of the year affords the party to have a long hurrah, to slip comfortably into the clothes that make a person feel better and to enjoy one of the most popular acts that comes to Liverpool and its Echo Arena, the phenomenal Deacon Blue.
Zervas And Pepper, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
To experience something new is one of the great pleasures of life. It gets the brain going, it tingles the imagination and sets a blazing path under your feet to try and find out more. Thankfully in the 21st Century, you can make a beeline for the internet when the evening’s performance is over; visit a band’s home page and then several really handy and badly taken concert footage reels which litter the web should the desire take you, all in the name of just finding out that little bit more about the fresh new sound your ears have been exposed to.
Justin Currie, Lower Reaches. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is a delicate nature that resides in even the stoniest of men. It might take the famed Heracles to make an additional scrawl on his list of labours in which to prise it out, but it will be found eventually.
One such person who has no need for Heracles or his famed strength is Del Amitri’s Justin Currie. The heart is not just on his sleeve, it seems to encompass everything he does and whether live on stage or recording music in the studio for his fans, the sleeve, the arm and the shirt are one big emotional scratching post for his haunting and very beautiful lyrics. Perhaps this has never been more true, certainly as a solo artist, than in his latest album release, Lower Reaches.
Lara Croft And The Temple of Osiris (PS4), Game Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is an isometric action adventure game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4.
Erica Nockalls, EN2. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Falling in love is easy, there are far too many sonnets and composed teenage angst written poems to suggest anything but. However staying in love, finding new ways in which the artists endearing affection and sheer honesty grapples with the heart and the mind in some sort of tantric wrestling match is a harder proposition for many in a disposable world to understand. However for Erica Nockalls, the maestro of the violin and arguably one of the finest players in Britain today, wrestling with the listener’s thoughts and musical desires is not on the agenda, not physically anyway, and in her second solo album EN2 the person cowering under the weight of uncertain times ahead is relieved by the undulating swell of string and bow and angry but beautifully paced and sincerely thought anger.
Babylon, Series One. Television Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Brit Marling, James Nesbitt, Bertie Carvel, Paterson Joseph, Ella Smith, Jonny Sweet, Nicola Walker, Cavan Clerkin, Jill Halfpenny, Adam Deacon, Nick Blood, Stuart Martin, Andrew Brooke.
There are times when the continuous stick against the back of the collective head is not enough, sometimes it takes cleverly written satire and drama with very well hidden comic undertones to get the message across that in 21st Century Britain, the apparent message is all consuming and powerful. The message is as loud and perhaps as obnoxious as its counterpart and sometimes occasional lover, the economy. If listened too very carefully, the two words can be interpreted as one and the same and the mantra gets repeated over an d over again like a man finding out that raw onions is bad for his digestive system but carries on believing that they are doing him good just because it helps expel wind.