Author Archives: admin

Meat Loaf, Better Than We Are. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The great Rock Opera, derided by some for its excess and supposed almost pantomime exuberance, adored by many for its clarity of enthusiasm, the energy and dynamic beauty that is unleashed, set free from the chains of regulated time keeping and enclosed lyrics. Whichever camp you fall into, love it or loathe it, there can be no denying that it brings out the very best in some and when a partnership that has endured on and off for almost 40 years as Meat Loaf’s and Jim Steinman’s, that best is almost statesmen like, godly, true and infectious.

Meat Loaf, Better Than We Are. Album Review. full post

(422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Captain Fantastic, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, George Mackay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin Miller, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Erin Moriarty, Missi Pyle, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Rex Young, Galen Osier, Thomas Brophy, Mike Miller, Louis Hobson, Hannah Horton.

It is on the face of it a seemingly small moment in cinema but Matt Ross’ intelligent and superbly argued script for Captain Fantastic captures the point of individualism and socialism in a world that only wants you to be a drone, a consumer, a person to whom history means nothing and whose appetite for the material and the edible is verging on obese and dangerously unhealthy. It is with a touch of grace that Captain Fantastic turns that rotten ideology on its head and offers a different view on how to live.

Captain Fantastic, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(452 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

A Rose(e) By Another Name.

A rose by another name

would probably find it annoying

to have an extra vowel placed

somewhere in its heart,

the petals red

with shame as they try

to figure out the meaning

of being called rosee,

like some cheery greeting

in a flamboyant bar; come here

Rosee and have a drink;

Rosee could be a typo, a slip of the keys

but it still realises that the florist

takes great care to spell

Chrysanthemum correctly

and not call it Chrissi

for short.

A Rose(e) By Another Name. full post

(89 words, estimated 21 secs reading time)

Chicago, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. 2016.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sophie Carmen-Jones, Hayley Tamaddon, John Partridge, Jessie Wallace, Francis Foreman, A D Richardson, Emily Warner, Waylon Jacobs, Lindsey Tierney, Ellie Mitchell, Nicola Coates, Francis Dee, Chelsea Labadini, Dann Kharsa, Justin-Lee Jones, Kerry Spark, Peter Nash, Adam Denman, Daniele Arbisi, Helen Siveter.

Chicago, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. 2016. full post

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

Shut.

I have shut the world out,

It is not the first time

I have resorted to this

but it only stems from not wanting

to be in the way;

from wanting to leave

the world in peace

without it worrying

about me.

Safe

here in my hole, the King

of the darkness I survey,

here I am protected from my own

toxic trust, innocent

in my rusted pleasure;

here I sit dependable

for there is nobody to tell

me otherwise.

 

Shut. full post

(87 words, estimated 21 secs reading time)

Thomas Lang, The German Alphabet. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There will always be those musicians who seem to pack in so many different styles and varieties into their albums that it can feel as if they have found the recipe for the perfect selection box. The sound of the horn encased within one layer and wrapping, the texture of a night spent with friends in a New Orleans Jazz Bar nestled firmly in to the box and the nugget of the right blend and satisfied crunch of flourish and thriving fanfare that makes any selection box worth having any time of year.

Thomas Lang, The German Alphabet. Album Review. full post

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

Damien Dempsey, No Force On Earth. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We live in a time when commemorations and anniversaries are common place, we seem, quite rightly to remember and revere the past now with more affection and memory than we would have done even a generation ago; yet somehow we don’t seem to really grasp the enormity of those times as much as our collective tears and silent bows of heads suggest we should. We cannot understand just by the odd allusion to the fallen just what some gave in their fight for freedom; No Force On Earth can do that unless we ourselves lived through it or we have the power of a master story teller to be able to focus our attention on what happened and how the people lived.

Damien Dempsey, No Force On Earth. Album Review. full post

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

Korean Peninsula War And The Furthering Of Atomic Nightmares.

Nothing has changed,

I still feel the gravity, the grave

of the three

in the morning shadow

that I have had since childhood

that all I know and love, those

to whom I have sheltered,

will all be vaporised in a minute

as bombs rain down

over our heads.

I once imagined

it would be amongst those envied

for why would you consider

living

like that, in amongst the rubble and burning

fires, the smell of death and putrid

dissolving water, now as I feel

Korean Peninsula War And The Furthering Of Atomic Nightmares. full post

(121 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

Billy Joel, Gig Review. Wembley Stadium, London.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The lights may have been seen to go out over Broadway, but as the sound of the piano keys crashed down and the echo of thousands of racing hearts fulfilled an ambition in the home of national sports greatest heroes, the illumination from a thousand cameras, of what seemed like a million cell phones capturing the event, Wembley was lit up in spectacular style. This was the honouring of a man for whom so many had perhaps waited a lifetime to watch perform and who now bathed in the glare of flashbulbs and love.

Billy Joel, Gig Review. Wembley Stadium, London. full post

(550 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Alarm Pull.

Alarm pull

for help

is on wrong side

of the bathroom

for someone naturally left handed

or someone who cannot open his eyes

in the morning,

reaching out half drowned

in the land of nod, the sound

of impending storm troopers,

Nazi guards in blue Travel-

lodge shirts and raised eyebrows

break down the door

with a gentle shove

and raise their eye brows

in disbelief

when they interrogate you

till you throw yourself upon their mercy…

I didn’t mean to pull the alarm,

Alarm Pull. full post

(99 words, estimated 24 secs reading time)