Author Archives: admin

A Spy Among Friends. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Guy Pearce, Damian Lewis, Anna Maxwell Martin, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Kunken, Monika Gossmann, Nicholas Rowe, Karel Roden, Puiu Mircea Lascus, Lucy Russell, Lucy Akhurst, Jennifer Marsala, Alexander Terentyev, Anastasia Hille, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Steven Elder, Thomas Arnold, Gilly Gilchrist, Daniel Lapaine, Jacob James Beswick, Mark Flitton, Rick Warden, Colin Mace, Jed Aukin, Anna Andresen, David Coomber, Jay Simpson, Lucinda Raikes, Nicholas Pritchard, Morgane Ferru, Denis Khoroshko, Kate Fahy, Jolyon Coy, George Taylor, Reza Diako, Alice Barclay, Tugba Tirpan, Ruth Clarson, Edward Baker-Duly, Roger Barclay, Orlando Wells, Justine Mitchell, Mark Tandy.

A Spy Among Friends. Television Drama Review. full post

(773 words, estimated 3:06 mins reading time)

The Bordellos: The Sunday Experience. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The Sunday Experience means different things to different age groups.

There are those to whom Sunday was steeped in a mystery of illusion, the world grinded on but for them it was still, the only movement detected was in the consistency of the gravy and the quickness of the finger as you pressed play/record on the tape deck to catch the latest hits surfacing around the top forty.

The Bordellos: The Sunday Experience. E.P. Review. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Assume Nothing: The Hunt For Typhoid Mary. Podcast Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Few people are synonymous or as intrinsically linked to a disease as that as Mary Mallon. The full name of the Irish immigrant to 19^th Century New York might leave a blank look upon the face of many, but that single given name, coupled and tied with the terror of Typhoid, will leave a scar of realisation, the chill of how infection and disease are humanity’s greatest threat to existence.

Assume Nothing: The Hunt For Typhoid Mary. Podcast Series Review. full post

(518 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Alice. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Keke Palmer, Common, Jonny Lee Miller, Caius Charles, Madelon Curtis, Kenneth Farmer, Natasha Yvette Williams, Jaxon Goldenberg, Craig Stark, Alicia Witt, Davod Andrew Nash, Jim McKeny, Katie Gill, Sharonne Lanier, Janet L. Burns, Durrell Lyons, Roderick Dorsey, Eddie King.

To own another human being is an abhorrence.

It is a statement of fact, a truth that is universal, and yet often ignored by those by whose own admission they see it is a right, an admission declared for all to see without a shred of shame in their hearts, that to enslave a person, another human being, is to attain a status…it is sick, depraved, and yet still goes on in the world. Across all cultures, men, women, children, all creeds, all colours, slavery is business.

Alice. Film Review. full post

(478 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

Jurassic World: Dominion. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Dewanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Isabella Sermon, Campbell Scott, BD Wong, Omar Sy, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, Scott Haze, Dichen Lachman, Kristoffer Polaha, Caleb Hearon, Freya Parker, Alexander Owen, Ahir Shah, Elva Trill, Teresa Cendon-Garcia, Manuela Mora, Bastian Antonio Fuentes, Jasmine Chiu, Varada Sethu, Ben Ashenden, Enzo Squillino Jr., Glynis Davies, Mo Brings Plenty, Emilie Jumeaux, Aisling Sharkey, Joel Eiferink.

Jurassic World: Dominion. Film Review. full post

(617 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

Black Star Riders: Wrong Side Of Paradise. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The world we know is crumbling, and whilst that may be a scenario, a reality in which many will find scary, daunting to contemplate, a measure of the forbidden exercise in relinquishing control, what lays beyond the so-called Wrong Side Of Paradise is not the Hell that Milton warned of, but perhaps the realisation that nothing can be as bad, as desperate, or as incendiary as what we refuse to see as our own inferno.

Black Star Riders: Wrong Side Of Paradise. Album Review. full post

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

Paul Carrack & The SWR Big Band: Don’t Wait Too Long. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Timing is everything in life; you can be the finest example of what you do, but if you mistime the moment then it is to be argued that the opportunity to leave your name etched in stone will be lost, and sand might be the only place in which your epitaph will appear.

Knowing the right moment is key, Don’t Wait Too Long to show the world just exactly how your thoughts, imagination and dreams have combined to spark something beautiful, something everlasting, a piece of art that is not only cool, but considered, full of emotional drama, a moment of fierce belief wrapped in the calm understanding of having struck a home run in front of a cheering crowd when the chips looked down.

Paul Carrack & The SWR Big Band: Don’t Wait Too Long. Album Review. full post

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

Elijah James And The Nightmares: Man In The Diner. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The Nighthawks await, silent, unmoving, an Edward Hopper painting capturing the solitude of modern life in the twilight and given a 21st Century aural theme, that is the sheer depth of illumination to be found as the listener is introduced to the Man In The Diner by Elijah James And The Nightmares; the difference being as Hopper’s painting has gained importance for its stagnation in the past, whilst still being hugely relevant, what the band implores is life, existence beyond the one dimensional, and in full glorious colour the man alone in the diner becomes all too real – he becomes the embodiment of us.

Elijah James And The Nightmares: Man In The Diner. Single Review. full post

(383 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

UFO: No Heavy Petting. Album Review. (Reissue 2023).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

No Heavy Petting, but surely a deep embrace for old times, a sweeping kiss gently placed on the brow, and the firm handshake of recognition that accompanies the hearty grin; a rerelease, expanded, given even more oomph, and one that places UFO in the realm of best heavy rock/ proto metal bands of all time.

UFO: No Heavy Petting. Album Review. (Reissue 2023). full post

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

Sam Brown: Number 8. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When a voice goes, we perhaps dismiss the person to whom it belongs. We might not purposely ignore the human being to whom the words have failed, but we certainly find a way to cast their whole being into a kind of purgatory, a lost and found for the once held in virtue.

Such an action says more about us as a society than it will ever do about the individual; we are not only quick to judge, but we are complicit in keeping the person, the artist, the voice lacking strength but not integrity, quiet.

Sam Brown: Number 8. Album Review. full post

(571 words, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)