Monthly Archives: November 2021

Sean Taylor, The Beat Goes On. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

How far can a song take you, how much are we willing to allow, to permit your heart to feeling the direction of dichotomy as it lurches like an out-of-control pendulum between heartbreak and affirmation of spirit. As both emotions centre of the self, as they govern how other’s see us at our most vulnerable, The Beat Goes On is the understanding that the heart and mind are there to remind us to keep believing we will not surrender to others who demand defeat and capitulation of the soul.

Sean Taylor, The Beat Goes On. Album Review. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Treetop Flyers, Old Habits. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Old Habits don’t just die hard, they are the building blocks to the emotions we feel, to what we experience later, and the hope that somewhere the new customs we forge and the behaviours that took us unblinkingly to the moment of inspiration merge and create additional, original thinking.

We cannot dismiss the habits of our youth, whether they were ill-intentioned or pieces of the puzzle that is by definition us; they are there in our past like marionettes, the strings being pulled by our own external force, waiting to dance to a novel and flavoursome tune.

Treetop Flyers, Old Habits. Album Review. full post

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

The Beatles: Get Back. Television Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

What is offered for commercial gain is not the full story, and quite often the full story never sees the cold light of day.

We have all seen what we believed was a cog in The Beatles story, culminating in a London roof top performance in which the ‘Fab Four’ showcased several songs that were to become part of the legend and myth of the group’s legacy; and yet what was presented, as with all edits, conflicts of interests, and trickeries of presentation, was barely even the surface of what was scratched, and as the crowds gathered, as bowler hatted men, as young girls and bemused, disgruntled police officers gathered in their masses, the idea of getting back was sold to the world.

The Beatles: Get Back. Television Film Review. full post

(611 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Jim Davies, Prey Later. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Prey Later, but first get the job done. A mantra to live by when plundering the depths of the soul in search of substance, in search of the body that sustains, to hunt down your prey or pray for salvation, either must give in to the primal urge of seeing the plan laid down in which to take affirmative action.

It is a mantra that Pitchshifter/The Prodigy’s Jim Davies has certainly absorbed as he follows up his debut album Headwars with his subsequent offering to an eager nation in the dynamic, dirty and industrialised Prey Later.

Jim Davies, Prey Later. Album Review. full post

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

Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

You can see it all, and yet still be unaware of the whole story that unfolds before your eyes. Seeing is believing, so they say, and yet what our eyes are able to visualise is barely enough to grasp the enormity of what the future is offering.

Today we are urged to take photographs of everything, to capture the moment, and this lends itself to two very different attitudes, one is the verification of the story, the proof framed that adds definition to the verbal narration, the other is the line taken by some that the photographer is merely seeking attention, demonstrating their life, be it humble, humdrum or beige, as one as an exciting monologue that deserves the full attention of likes, loves and shocked memes.

Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool. Book Review. full post

(525 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Shetland: Series Six. Television Review.

Liverpool sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Douglas Henshall, Alison O’ Donnell, Steven Robertson, Mark Bonnar, Lewis Howden, Erin Armstrong, Anne Kidd, Fiona Bell, Neve McIntosh, Benny Young, Juie Brown, Jimmy Chisholm, Conor McCarry, Angus Miller, Cora Bissett, Stephen McCole, Kate Bracken, Thoren Ferguson, Andy Clark, Anneika Rose, Lewis Gribben, Sharif Dorani, Shonagh Price.

A pertinent question of the times, the ambiguity of morality, and the classic example of how low someone can stoop when they look to revenge; all this against the backdrop of island life in the shadow of murder, of the slow decline of the human mind, and the tensions that run high when an island’s life is supposedly threatened by a returning, and unwanted, soul.

Shetland: Series Six. Television Review. full post

(554 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Schattenmann, Chaos. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One person’s chaos is another’s organised anarchy, and for the one who stands between the two states of being, it is the upheaval of the tornado of souls that scatters all life around them who can, for a while at least, appreciate the natural order of division.

Chaos, Schattenmann’s third studio album, is a combination of high intensity metal, but one delivered with the preciousness of steadfast observation in a world that requires tough love, but one that also feels that art and all its creativity is a finer way to show humanity and civilisation that quite often that what we perceive as chaos is actually continual revolution.

Schattenmann, Chaos. Album Review. full post

(338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Paul Edis, The Still Point Of The Turning World. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We are forever being reminded that the world does not revolve around us, and yet in the same breath we are advised that if we do nothing, if we don’t believe in ourselves then what was the point in existence, where does the balance begin that those who wish to see people subservient to the whims of static corrosion and those that urge others to strike out and achieve all that they can, and where does it ultimately lead?

Paul Edis, The Still Point Of The Turning World. Album Review. full post

(375 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Cobra: Cyberwar. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Robert Carlyle, Victoria Hamilton, David Haig, Richard Dormer, Marsha Thomason, Lisa Palfrey, Edward Bennett, Lucy Cohu, Joshua Hogan, Grace Hogg-Robinson, Richard Pepple, Andrew Buchan, Neil Stuke, Alexa Davies, Karan Gill, Dipo Ola, Georgie Bingham, Michael Jibson.

When it comes to politics, art and life are so entwinned that it can be difficult to discern the difference, to understand where fiction and fact blur and merge, where the lines of personal ambition overlap the need of entertainment; only politics seems to play with its own creation, and like Frankenstein looming over the unfortunate being as he pushes electricity through its monstrous shaped body, the result is one of indisputable carnage and denial of responsibility.

Cobra: Cyberwar. Television Review. full post

(555 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Neil Campbell, The Great Escape. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To speak a language of love and sensuality without words is to acknowledge that poetry exists in many forms, that communication is not all down to verbal sound, and that human existence, human tragedy and joy don’t always need talking over.

To stand between silence and the projection of the voice is the sound of the instrumental, and in The Great Escape from ego and the uncomfortable, perhaps even muzzled, suppression of expression, there stands the influence and involved manifestation of the sound, the character of leaping into the unknown and eluding both ends of the spectrum, the silence and cacophony of the unfiltered human voice.

Neil Campbell, The Great Escape. Album Review. full post

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