Author Archives: admin

The One Hundred, Chaos + Bliss. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Let the heat kick in, for The One Hundred have encountered Chaos + Bliss in the air and in the mind set of those politicians, those seeking power who are willing to cause it in the name of advancement and arguably profit.

Chaos though, in the hands of the oppressed and the put down is the anger in which the ordinary person can fight back and bliss is the welcome relief in which the heart can feel the irregular beat of tyranny, dissolve and the torment pass. Two sides of the same coin but one steeped in the rhythm of subjugation, the other the easing of domination by rhyme and reason; let the heat kick in because The One Hundred have got it sussed.

The One Hundred, Chaos + Bliss. Album Review. full post

(378 words, 1 image, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Five Cold Heartless Monkeys.

Still not angry yet?

Say Boris,

ask yourself this,

a pound here, a shilling or two there,

is it all worth it when someone dies

when their dreams  come undone

when sleep is supposed to be the safest haven,

hey Teresa, a face that only

a lemon squeezer could produce,

with cold lips and ambition

to craw back another pound,

waste the money that was never there

you said, for the magic money tree

doesn’t exist, as you sit on more money

than God, how many

Five Cold Heartless Monkeys. full post

(192 words, estimated 46 secs reading time)

Chris Tavener, Apocalypse Prediction. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Satire is not dead, it hasn’t even been resting, it has just had reached a saturation point because politics and the human race have done such a great job in spoofing itself, and for a reasonably intelligent species, for a group of immensely able naked apes, we have immense perversity in being able to doubt our own existence and predict our own downfall at the hands of others as if we still believe in the Gods of old.

Chris Tavener, Apocalypse Prediction. Single Review. full post

(355 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Acadian Driftwood, Rain Falling In. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The Tempest may call out, the fire and brimstone of the age may dedicate itself to wiping out all you knew and all that was to come but to see the Rain Falling In, to see it drip in tandem with the seconds on a stopwatch or cascade like a river in a flood plain but through the very joists and foundations of your home or your house, is to understand that nature is always going to win, that nature in all its fury and positivity is to be adored and not stifled.

Acadian Driftwood, Rain Falling In. Single Review. full post

(331 words, 1 image, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

My Cousin Rachel. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sam Claflin, Rachel Weisz, Holliday Grainger, Iain Glen, Poppy Lee Friar, Andrew Knott, Andrew Havill, Vicky Pepperdine, Katherine Pearce, Harry Hays, Tristram Davies, Chris Gallarus, Bobby Scott, Freeman.

The very name Daphne Du Maurier is one surely that should conjure up the very essence of British writing and one that stands alongside the greatest of the 20th Century, Agatha Christie and Virginia Woolf, and yet for one of Cornwall’s greatest adopted daughters, her passionate, often moody but always multi-layered work, doesn’t get the screen treatment it deserves, and aside from the fantastic adaption of The Birds and Rebecca by the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, the writer has been pretty much left of the list of books that are ripe for bringing to an even greater audience.

My Cousin Rachel. Film Review. full post

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

The Mummy. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, Marwan Kenzari.

There are times in which as a fan of the realm of the macabre and chilling, that you can actually find yourself missing the world of Hammer House of Horror, not through any type of morbid curiosity, but because it would have been perhaps more interesting to see how such creatures of British literature might have fared with a more diverse treatment rather than being arguably hung out to dry in the race to take on Marvel and D.C. in a world of heroes, villains, gods and monsters that Universal Pictures seems hell bent on creating.

The Mummy. Film Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

A Dalek Playing Sax.

Stuck traffic, a jam to end all jams

and bored rigid in a taxi, the counter

climbing breathlessly

up towards its own ticking Everest;

six in the evening,

a possible fight in the sunset eve

as tempers boil over

and there by St. George’s

Hall, a complex, but through my taxi

windows, silent and animated argument

began to unburden

itself in the Liverpool warmth.

As long as we sat there,

engine revving like a lion pacing

in its own cage, I expected the worst,

A Dalek Playing Sax. full post

(185 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

London Grammar, Truth Is A Beautiful Thing. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

If You Wait provided a glimpse it seems at what London Grammar could show to the world, an album that rightly had the group propelled out of the lecture halls of University and into the serious consideration of many a music fan’s dearest desire. A group to whom the meaning of substantial and forceful was to become a huge compliment and whilst the band were in their infancy, there was huge hope that the trio would eventually be heavyweights; a case of very soon rather than later.

London Grammar, Truth Is A Beautiful Thing. Album Review. full post

(423 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

If the world cannot have Fleetwood Mac, then there is always at least Fleetwood Mac in one form or another and one of the reasons that the band name endures, touches the hearts of the vast majority who have ever heard the group across all the incarnations and different styles, is arguably down to the soul of Lindsey Buckingham. Regardless of whether on his own in the beguiling Seeds We Sow from 2011, across time with Stevie Nicks or in the passion that the classic line up of Fleetwood Mac bring together, the sense of magic and musical accomplishment, there is always Lindsey Buckingham, there is always Fleetwood Mac.

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, Album Review. full post

(419 words, 1 image, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Everyday Parrot Blues.

Repeat after me,

you are only a miserable sod.

It was words that I knew to be false,

miserable,

unhappy perhaps, certainly cheerless

in some cases, wretched,

low, as overcast as leaden sky

and the darkness of a thunderstorm

waiting to rage…

but even in that thunderstorm

must come surely

lightning, the illumination

of a flood of ideas, the mania

of hopeful praise and the sense

that the brief encounter

with electric vibration may last

long enough to kick start the heart

Everyday Parrot Blues. full post

(138 words, estimated 33 secs reading time)