Author Archives: admin

Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst: Hey! Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Uniqueness is often greeted with either a sense of cosmic adoration, or more than likely in a world that thinks nothing of claiming that jealousy is a virtue, with suspicion and fear. How often did we as children hear the adult demand, “Why can’t you be more like…”? How often do we allow others who have no inkling of what we have gone through to become the person we are, change us without a single proclamation of refusal, without a single uttered Hey! in annoyance at their lack of boundary acceptance.

Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst: Hey! Album Review. full post

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

Brigitte Beraha: Blink. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

To understand that music is more than just a simple melody or even just a tune that catches your ear is to know deep down that experimentation is at the heart of the matter, it is its core, the belief in not playing it safe for the crowd and the bank balance is something to salute, to resolutely admire; and whilst it is not to everyone’s taste, the listener who embarks upon the lucid dream of investigation is justly rewarded for their time and confidence in the artist who dares imagine.

Brigitte Beraha: Blink. Album Review. full post

(313 words, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)

Boo Hewerdine: Understudy. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The words of the Understudy are forever poised to be spoken, and if we dare allow someone else to declare our own intentions, their voice, our sentence and our version of the truth, then we deserve to never be the main player in the telling of our own story.

Boo Hewerdine: Understudy. Album Review. full post

(455 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Bowling For Soup: Pop Drunk Snot Bread. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

You can try, but you can’t keep the willing and able down for too long, and whilst Bowling For Soup may have found themselves unwittingly pursuing Frank Sinatra’s comeback number, to disclaim their popularity, to suggest anything other than the band know how to get the juices of the audience and the public going with their memorable, almost infectious lyrics and untamed pleasurable spirit, is to place a mark against a whole sub-genre of Punk-Pop-Rock, and one that would be unfair, and grossly undermining the appeal of a group that has humour as a major weapon in their musical arsenal.

Bowling For Soup: Pop Drunk Snot Bread. Album Review. full post

(436 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

The Divine Comedy, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Gig Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To Absent Friends…

A joyful crowd, one perhaps with deep untouched feelings within their souls, people who have lost pals, friends, loved ones, in a period of time which we were collectively denied moments that bring us joy, and which, to those absent friends, their presence, their love, might have circulated long into the night as Neil Hannon, the persona of The Divine Comedy, brought a collection of songs, hits, and wonders to Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall, and revelled in the mischief of lyrical genius, and the chance to shake off, maybe for the first time in a couple of years, the pressure of an unforgiving period in human history.

The Divine Comedy, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Gig Review. full post

(514 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Henry VI. Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Stratford-Upon-Avon. Theatre Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Mark Quartley, Minnie Gale, Arthur Hughes, Oliver Alvin-Wilson, Ashley D Gale, Ben Hall, Nicholas Karimi, Conor Glean, Daniel J Carver, Richard Cant, Lucy Benjamin, Aaron Sidwell, Paola Dionisotti, Sophia Papadopoulos, Peter Moreton, Yasmin Taheri, Emma Tracey, Daniel Ward, Benjamin Westerby, John Tate, Angelina Chudi, Felixe Forde, Jack Humphrey, Al Maxwell, Georgia-Mae Myers, Ibraheem Toure.

Henry VI. Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Stratford-Upon-Avon. Theatre Review. full post

(818 words, estimated 3:16 mins reading time)

Inside No.9: Mr King. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Annette Badland, Elin Owen, Charlie Baron, Rosie Ekenna, William Newton.

We are continually told to cherish our children, they are after all, our future, the ones who will inherit our mess, the ones who will pay the price for our folly, our ignorance, and mismanagement.

In the world of the macabre and chilling, children though are perhaps the more gruesome of observers in the game of life, ghoulish in the spitefulness, morbid in their fascination of what makes their adult counterparts tick; it is no wonder that some of the finest horror films have had children, or the childlike, at the very heart of their narrative.

Inside No.9: Mr King. Television Review. full post

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

Thunder: Dopamine. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The message is loud and clear, all the right noises have been made, and the interferences of the outside world have been subdued, beaten, and vanquished with the air of authority befitting the band, for Thunder have once more stepped up to the stage and returned with an album that makes the heart quicken, makes the mind active, and all in a natural sense, not a quick hit of addiction in which it seems the multitude always require, but a steady, beefy attraction in which the Dopamine is constant, and pleasurable.

Thunder: Dopamine. Album Review. full post

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

Ann Wilson: Fierce Bliss. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

You shouldn’t judge anything by its cover; except arguably for art itself.

It is to art that one of the grand ladies of Rock, Ann Wilson returns to the centre stage with her brand-new album, Fierce Bliss. Art not only for art’s sake, but one that cements the course she has been on for a while, as a woman who is more than the Heart decrees, and to whom time itself has been cowed into submission by her continued presence in the minds and soul of the fans.

Ann Wilson: Fierce Bliss. Album Review. full post

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

Not Going Out. Series 12. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Lee Mack, Sally Breton, Hugh Dennis, Abigail Cruttenden, Deborah Grant, Geoffrey Whitehead, Tony Gardner, Colin McFarlane, Samantha Spiro, Joselyn Jee Esien, Katie Redford, Jolyon Coy, Gwyneth Powell, Joe Wilkinson, Stephanie Langton, Anil Desai, Max Pattison, Francesca Newman, Finley Southby, Max Willis, Rich Keeble.

It may be a huge claim, but few have scaled such a height in British television comedy that they can be compared so favourably to the legendary, and beloved Tony Hancock.

Not Going Out. Series 12. Television Review. full post

(580 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)