A Registry Office, it could have been anywhere,
but it happened to be there
at that appointed time with you,
a sluggish hour, in which
you confessed soon afterwards
on the train to Waterloo
and the promise of
cinema on that cold December night,
that you secretly had never loved me,
that up until the last minute
you had no intention of turning up
to our intended date and solemn vows.
You seemed surprised when years later,
finally as I cracked under the pressure
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is the relentless and well deserved swagger that can be observed and felt when watching a band from New York City play out their songs on stage in one of the myriad of venues, bars and music halls that light up the brightest place on Earth.
It is a swagger that is not born of boastfulness or the anger of arrogance, but one that infects the artist with just cause; play in New York and you can put reservations down anywhere because the spirit of the city has got inside you and shines vibrantly. It is a with pleasure to see that vibrant intensity pushing the strut, the flag flying high parade of Jane Lee Hooker as they release their new album Spiritus.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Said The Maiden bring a balance to musical harmony that is quite unlike anything else that clothes itself in the mystique of Folk music.
It may be a strong statement, one of those in which the listener might struggle to accept as nothing more than an anecdote or wishful thinking on behalf of those who believe they have found a purity of soul and desire to spread the word, and yet deep inside Here’s A Health lays a toast to all that hear the rhythm, all those that utter unconsciously cheers to Jess Distill, Hannah Elizabeth and Kathy Pilkinton as they serenade with the finer elements of English Folk music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Desperate times can bring out the very best in people, it can enhance the artistic endeavour, it can find ways to hold a mirror up to culture and civilisation, to the individual just how their lives have taken a wrong turn, or give them a warning that to carry on the road of ignorance is to convey the message that society no longer matters, that we are just one step away from all being migrants, strangers, uninformed Collateral in a fractured world,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
To welcome back Talk Show from the recording studio is to find yourself back in the arms of a linguistic lover who paints pictures with a heartbeat that is so closely entwined to your own needs, that you cannot but help know you are going to be caressed all night long as the memories linger and the sound of wave after wave of a Permanent Honeymoon, one supplied by one of the most attention-grabbing bands of modern times to come along.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Your own personal rapture, the moment of exquisiteness that defines a life and the dynamism of the heralding of the call up to the table you have long wanted to be at. The first painting sold, the debut poem that gets applause or the E.P that signals that all that went before was indeed true and not damned by plastic smiles and the faint whiff of sulphur from fork tongued mouths; This Rapture is to be believed and seen as the stepping stone to audience enthusiasm and one that is a palpable heart stirring prospect.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To hear Daniel Astles is to see the point of naming an E.P. Full of Wonder, it does obviously allude to the songs contained harmoniously within the song listing, it does offer the sincerity of the music captured and the respect deserved. However, if you were to choose a title for the young man’s release then you would probably think of him anyway, you would align your thoughts on the whole package and come up with the same belief, that indeed it is Full of Wonder.
She makes them just for me,
and her mum, hand crafted
each Yuletide as the decorations
hang
forever in an unspectacular box
on the airing cupboard.
I told her that I loved her Mince Pies,
despite not caring about the day
itself and they were delicious,
however I had once
tasted, just to try,
a shop finished treat
as I slowly warmed myself with a hot chocolate delight
against the cold I felt in my middle age veins;
Her eyes always blue, blazed and narrowed,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Time, as noted by the singer and the audience, is a peculiar animal, it can snarl all it wants, it can find ways to give new perspective to eras in which some saw the end of a kind of order and were frightened by the prospect and in which other relished and rubbed their hands in glee as the future and bold vision opened up before them.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
To make the audience focus completely on the drama unfolding before them takes consummate skill, a deftness of spirit, the potency of allure and the mystery, the sense of living through a moment so tangible that it seems all the functions of the human body stop what they are doing and just sit in the honour of the spectacle; to focus so much that you cannot hear a crowd breathe during a song and then applaud like a series of rolling thunderstorms across an empty desert, that is the absolute found.