Author Archives: admin

Diamond Days, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool.

Diamond Days at E.V.A.C, Liverpool, May 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A change of scene is all it takes to get the full bloodied effect of what a band is capable of saying. Not just capable, but with style and accomplished grace, with passion and drive and the sweet serenade of a smile majestically raised to the heavens. The change is so palpable that it really makes the listener fully endorse the group as just oozing awesome from out of their collective shell.

Diamond Days, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool. full post

(449 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Boston Manor, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Sometimes you just have to applaud the demeanour of a band that has just sweated copious amounts of sweat in the name of the cause. That sweat, almost pouring with the same majestic force as the water that tumbles over Niagara Falls after a torrent of rain has swelled the mighty beast to bursting point, comes ready packaged as part of Boston Manor’s short but high spirited and highly energetic set at the Fury Fest at the East Village Arts Centre.

Boston Manor, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool. full post

(366 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

These Minds, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

The rivalry between the two leading cities of the North-West doesn’t just limit itself to the battles that take place between the four combined sides battling it out for Premiership supremacy, it extends back through recent history in its struggle to been to seen as the second city of the country, the powerhouses of commerce and in its music.

The football is all well and good however, on recent form Manchester shades it, especially with the re-emergence of the only team to actually play their home games in Manchester, but the music and its dominance on the local cultural landscape; that surely has to be down as a thrashing handed out by the city that straddles the Mersey.

These Minds, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool. full post

(401 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Oh, Pioneer, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool.

Oh, Pioneer at E.V.A.C. Liverpool. May 2015. Photograpgh by Ian D. Hall.

Oh, Pioneer at E.V.A.C. Liverpool. May 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

When people criticise the young with the relentless enthusiasm associated with the post Victorian hangover that was so prevalent in the 1960s and ‘70s, the post war side effect of dogmatic unilateral hatred that was once rightly aimed at the forehead of Fascism but turned itself into its own parody by suggesting that all should be dealt with strict unfeeling indifference, that is the time in which to run for the hills and pray to whichever deity counts your musical soul as a personal possession that you never go so far down the route of being obnoxious, that even if it’s one thing only, you will find something to enjoy.

Oh, Pioneer, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool. full post

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

The New 52: Harley Quinn Volume 1: Hot in The City, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Re-invention is at times good for the soul, for D.C. Comics’ Harley Quinn it’s a positive boon.

The arguments of the New 52 series is one that might last until graphic novels sail long into the collective memory of all who have had the fortune to be taken on many a voyage of discovery with the utopian marriage of an excellent scripted story and the artwork that would adorn many a wall. It revived and refreshed what had become a standing joke amongst fans of the superhero genre in Aqua Man, it gave new context to titles such as The Justice League and perhaps greatest of all, took the most insane but beautifully crafted of modern inceptions of the D.C. world, Harley Quinn, and made her a true star in her own dramatic right.

The New 52: Harley Quinn Volume 1: Hot in The City, Graphic Novel Review. full post

(598 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

Console Dogma.

…and also it is the dead eyes of a psychopath that terrify me most,

your eyes staring back at me, staring back with coward

like jealousy oozing out, yellow pus filled, the small secretion

of envy wrapped in guilt, draped in opulent greed

and enveloped, bound and laminated in your own self belief;

hubris defied you and allowed you to stand tall with ignorance.

How far does the delusion go? Does it spread all the way through

to the point of no return and your words

unable to fathom the point of exit,

Console Dogma. full post

(296 words, estimated 1:11 mins reading time)

Far From The Madding Crowd (2015), Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.CT., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, Juno Temple, Tilly Vosburgh, Mark Wingett, Dorian Lough, Sam Phillips, Bradley Hall, Hilton McRae, Jessica Barden, Harry Peacock, Victor McGuire, Jody Halse, Pauline Whitaker, Belinda Low, Leonard Szepietowski, Jon Gunn, Andrew Price, Thomas Arnold, Richard Dixon.

Far From The Madding Crowd (2015), Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.CT., Liverpool. full post

(523 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

The Smile And The Howl.

That first day, I mean the very first proper day

when we had our first group session together

and you sat at the back of the room with what I

would have called the cool kids thirty years before,

leaving, stranding me beside the battered front desk

of a tutor who spoke too fast and in a language

that well as might have been based in Maths, Fortran or

Gobbledegook,

your blonde hair shone and shimmered as much as it did

for the following three years in which it was my honour

The Smile And The Howl. full post

(307 words, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

Samantha Fish, Wild Heart. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The last thing any Blues, or indeed any genre of music fan, would ever want is to come across a woman of sheer substance and fortitude and then ask for her to be tamed. No woman of Earth should ever have that ignominy thrust upon her, damaging her own will and thoughts; and certainly not to those who are natural and who have a Wild Heart.

Samantha Fish, Wild Heart. Album Review. full post

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

Heath Common, Encounters With Light. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It has been mooted recently that the art of poetry is one that is dying. Not only is that a preposterous notion to bandy around but one that deserves contempt by all poets playing their trade for the one perfect sentence and certainly should be treated with scornful derision by anybody who takes the living, breathing sentences of Heath Common and pays them the same courtesy that one would pay the likes of Jack Kerouac. Poetry in such hands is not dead, it’s not resting, it is abundant and playing cerebral havoc as has Encounters with Light that Heath Common provides.

Heath Common, Encounters With Light. Album Review. full post

(441 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)