Author Archives: admin

Darrel Treece-Birch’s Atlantea: Choices. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Are we the parts that we chose to cultivate, the interests we refused to let go; or are we the result of determination that was passed down by the branches of our family tree that never had the chance or the choice to be realised in the past, and which only now are being asserted in our possible futures?

Choices they are not ours to make, despite the illusion of options and preference, in truth the determination of variety has been long selected before we arrived at the moment of truth, and it is moment few of us our willing to acknowledge, let alone discuss in conversation or admire in the world of art.

Darrel Treece-Birch’s Atlantea: Choices. Album Review. full post

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

Billy Joel: The Album Collection – Volume 2. Vinyl Boxset Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

It feels as though maybe Time had stopped for a while, the clocks refusing to move forward in fear of losing a precious commodity, not wanting to reveal the final performances of arguably one of music’s most important figures of the latter half of the 20th Century, and yet after two long years in which the world has found its way to damage itself, what holds dear is that art has the power to heal if people are willing to spend time in its company and do more than pay lip service to its message and its potency.

Billy Joel: The Album Collection – Volume 2. Vinyl Boxset Review. full post

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

Richard Hawley: Now Then: The Very Best Of Richard Hawley. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The world could be said to be too constricted by the narrowness in which we look for human artistic longevity. It is perhaps our own fault, for we have become enamoured with the world of the quick fix, the instant image, the need to swipe quickly if the image does not immediately grab our attention or find us simpering in the presence of what we consider momentary beauty.

We need to relearn the art of patience, to meld the now and the then together so we can see how the lines were created between the two moments of appreciation.

Richard Hawley: Now Then: The Very Best Of Richard Hawley. Album Review. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Dire Straits: Live 1978-1992. Album Box Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Undoubtedly Dire Straits should be thought of one of the most dynamic and talented groups to have graced the studio and the arenas of the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, a sound caught in the whirlwind of zeitgeist, an image that had listeners obsessed with the way the guitar evoked such a feeling of drama and fierce complex emotions, how it tied with the lyrical poetic form of anguish, of nostalgia, and the combination of what was bordering on Progressive with the length of songs that were unveiled in each studio album, or the form they took in expanding a narrative.

Dire Straits: Live 1978-1992. Album Box Set Review. full post

(491 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Nordic Viola: Elsewhere, Elsewhen. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

However much we hold onto the beauty of the southern aspect of Europe as being a dream of existence within our souls, the sense of sultry evenings and flowing wines, of warmth keeping our blood alive, we must acknowledge, that the north of the continent has its own history which runs in our D.N.A. The sagas might not be as well versed amongst the population as those that scintillated and remained from Rome or Greece, but they persist, they have meaning and we must accept that ancient civilizations and their ability to enthral through art is just as important as that which the likes of Ovid or Aristophanes excelled.

Nordic Viola: Elsewhere, Elsewhen. Album Review. full post

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

Black Grape: Orange Head. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Life’s beige acceptance has meant that we are now outraged by people who a decade ago would have been left by the wayside as non-entities, as the fools they have shown themselves to be, and we are the ones to whom have paid the price for the simpering maladjustment of grandeur we have afforded them.

Black Grape: Orange Head. Album Review. full post

(403 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

We Apologise For Any Inconvenience. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Deborah Findlay, Adam Gillen, Ruth Everett, Asif Khan, Gerard McDermott, Rosie Mellett, Hasan Dixon.

When we think of strange happenings at train stations our minds could be drawn to the terrific tale by Charles Dickens, The Signal-Man,  and the second adventure in the spooky Sapphire and Steel series, for our lives in the last two hundred years have been altered by the arrival of the ability to travel across country in a matter of hours rather than the days and weeks it would have taken to journey for example from London to Inverness even at the end of the 18th Century; but also time has a way of causing ripples, and where better than a place where mechanism and modern ingenuity meets the stagnation of patiently waiting for life to continue.

We Apologise For Any Inconvenience. Audio Drama Review. full post

(531 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Sick. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Gideon Adlon, Bethlehem Million, Dylan Sprayberry, Marc Menchaca, Jane Adams, Joel Courtney, Chris Reid, Duane Stephens, Logan Murphy.

The inevitability of it all is such that not even a pandemic can stop the forces of a home invasion film revolving around the descent of grief and the need for revenge.

Sick. Film Review. full post

(502 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Quantum Leap (2022). Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Raymond Lee, Caitlin Bassett, Mason Alexander Park, Nanrisa Lee, Ermie Hudson, Susan Diol, Georgina Reilly, Walter Perez.

Time has moved on but somehow remains the same when it comes to searching for a new idea when it comes to entertaining television viewers, and for those who were struck by the sense of excitement and particular novel storytelling that brought the original run of Quantum Leap to the screens, to look upon what is essentially a sequel, one that is written with a new sensibility and direction  driving the narrative, it can be daunting, perhaps even disrespectful to that which made Scott Bakula a house hold name and further enhanced the popularity of Dean Stockwell.

Quantum Leap (2022). Television Series Review. full post

(432 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Afton Wolfe: The Harvest. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

How we use language is a guide to how we see humanity, the more it is flourished, how it insists upon growth and diversity, the way it is structured with words that adaptable, malleable, full of strong conscious words that make a person weep with exultation and dream of peace, then the chances are that the language used is one of a truth that has been truly embraced.

Afton Wolfe: The Harvest. Album Review. full post

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