Author Archives: admin

Eddy Morton, Rainbow Man. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The small steps that lead into the music room, the wonderfully compact and almost soulful ambient hiding hole of the great and good of Stourbridge’s musical elite that reside in Katie Fitzgerald’s have told a thousand tales, have housed some of the most expansive and genuinely beautiful talent that the area can boast. A talent that is rich and diverse and amongst it all, in the throng of a the marquee and the locally brewed guitar string and distilled to perfection lyric, stands Eddy Morton and his latest album Rainbow Man.

Eddy Morton, Rainbow Man. Album Review. full post

(397 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Two, Theatre Review. Lantern Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jennifer Bea, Greg Russell.

A sharp and touching slice of English life set in a Northern Pub owned by a savagely bickering husband and wife. Two is a series of short vignettes that skilfully combines pathos and humour, with all fourteen characters played by two actors. During the course of the evening assorted customers pass through including a little boy left behind by his father – an event which triggers a movement towards a fragile reconciliation between the pub couple, as their own dark tragedy is revealed.

Two, Theatre Review. Lantern Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Jim Pearson, It Might Never Happen. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It Might Never Happen is Jim Pearson’s fifth studio album.  If you have not heard Jim Pearson so far, you need to. Simply put, the album is thoughtful, evocative, playful and intelligent indie-pop and indie-folk at its finest and catchiest.  Eclectic and retro in sound, the songs will have listeners tapping out a beat and humming along as much as any cheesy pop song and whatever the lyrics are doing the songs mostly have an upbeat sensibility.

Jim Pearson, It Might Never Happen. Album Review. full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Mad Max: Fury Road, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter, Angus Sampson, Megan Gale, Melissa Jaffer, Coco Jack Gillies.

There are times when a long chase sequence is played out in front of a cinema audience and the heart just groans under the pressure of being subjected to the Director’s whim and fancy. It can be viewed upon as just being delivered as if the Director has no other idea of what to place into the film’s story line than have several cars or vehicles race round for a couple of hours with no discernible universal truth being explored. It is basically a testosterone fight but with petrol pumping through the heart instead of blood; it’s been done so many times that it has almost become a pastiche of itself.

Mad Max: Fury Road, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

The Train To Dawlish Warren.

“It’s different”, she said to me, her eyes blazing

with the ferocity of one caught in the act of shielding

her pupils against the sudden rush of sunlight

that had crept over the green lush hill

full of potential and the intoxicating aroma

of diverse flowers flowing on the wings of Apollo,

not a rose in sight to pour scorn over.

 

“It’s as if the dance we had is the same,

the tune vaguely familiar and interesting, but the steps,

the ones we learned together, have now been altered.”

The Train To Dawlish Warren. full post

(197 words, estimated 47 secs reading time)

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones (PS4), Game Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5 out of 10

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones is a side scrolling stealth platform puzzle game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. This new game is a sequel to 2013’s PlayStation Vita and PS3 versions of Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark and just as the first game did; it throws players into a world in which a single false move will see the character suffer instant death, while mixing danger with the requirement of speed and strategy.

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones (PS4), Game Review. full post

(2406 words, estimated 9:37 mins reading time)

Fearless Vampire Killers, Gig Review. o2 Academy, Liverpool. (2015).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

When Fearless Vampire Killers last stood on the stage of the Academy in support to Medina Lake in 2013, the sense of the occasion was rife in the air. The mercurial, almost explosive substances of hopeful burgeoning testosterone mixed with feminine guile and raging hormones fighting it out over supremacy and the will of capitulation hung heavy in the air and the taste of being undefeatable rampant and undisguised. Nothing has changed in the intervening 18 months except for the air getting heavier and the crowd becoming more vocal, aside from that, to be at a Fearless Vampire gig is to be honoured.

Fearless Vampire Killers, Gig Review. o2 Academy, Liverpool. (2015). full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Annisokay, Gig Review. o2 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The enigmatic smile that growls in the darkness on offer by German band Annisokay throughout their latest album, is nothing compared to the broad all knowing grin they lay out before a live audience, especially an audience that is treated to their performance for the first time ands in a city not noted for its love of the genre.

Annisokay, Gig Review. o2 Academy, Liverpool. full post

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

Inspector George Gently: Gently Between Friends. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Adrian Bower, Louise Brealey, Emma Cunniffe, Anthony Flanagan, Jim Moir, Nick Sidi, Kris Deedigan, Luke Maddison, Glyn Pritchard, Paul Brennen, Simon Hubbard, Annabel Scholey, Lawrence Neal, Jim Kitson, Shaughan Seymour, William Troughton.

Arguments between friends, especially life long ones, can be the source of much anger and hatred; yet somehow they blow over without much issue or ceremony, a drink and a proper handshake, one without descending into sarcasm and cynicism. It is the ones that don’t blow over, where hatred and jealousy become entwined and unable to be torn apart, that’s when the spectre of murder rears its ugly head and the free flowing nature of Gently Between Friends is disturbed.

Inspector George Gently: Gently Between Friends. Television Review. full post

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

The Muse Of Old (Was Burned Today).

I let the flames devour the past today

whilst keeping each memory intact for future use.

I let an explosion of tight yellows and blues spread

and search for more fuel, more wasted ways to say

that the muse of words have been completely abused

and now they lay fried and buried, the words are dead.

 

I once hung upon them and revered them to show growth,

the patient delivery of a lead-lined pencil, the Time between Time

and the slow mark of a pact, the most solemn of oaths;

The Muse Of Old (Was Burned Today). full post

(154 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)