Author Archives: admin

Kyle Carey, North Star. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is a bind that ties the U.K. to North America that goes beyond the physical appreciation of its common and often misused language, more so than the rugged terrain and building blocks of democracy and historical values, it is the appreciation for the vast majority of times, in the importance of the two countries similar music tastes. Perhaps it goes further than that, it is interwoven in the thought of its ability to sow the seeds of its Celtic folk traditions to those over the edge of the Atlantic basin and the lost memories of the places that surround England, the beating conscious of artistic thought and the long established alternative view generated by hundreds of years rule from a pile of land that was once a monastery.

Cake, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Anna Kendrick, Sam Worthington, Marnie Gummer, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Chris Messina, Lucy Punch, Britt Robertson, Allan Moldono, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Misty Upham., Evan O’ Toole.

Nobody can snap a finger and make you better; nobody can get inside your head and see the grief that assists the pain that the body feels.  When every movement feels like torture, even the briefest glimpse of something bright and hopeful only serves to remind what was lost. It is almost the perfect summing up for Jennifer Aniston’s latest film, Cake.

A List Of The Missing.

I missed the knock

on the train’s dirty window as the young poet

frantically tried to catch my attention as I mooched past

in a reluctant poem of my own.

The blonde haired girl with glasses, wide-ever appreciating eyes,

skipping heartbeat,

who sat across the void of space and expanse of tables

in the café, missed the chance for true adoration as she fell head first

into the eyes of the wildly passionate and sincere man

with eyes only for her ignorantly blessed friend,

All We Are, Gig Review. ALoft Hotel, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Only All We Are could be magnificent enough, dare to be different enough, to play venues in Liverpool that nobody else might ever think of. If a night in Williamson Tunnels on the edge of town, a venue more in keeping for the wake that was held for the much missed British horror writer James Herbert, was taken with as much seriousness and endeavour as performing for others might approach a night at the Echo Arena, then to play a selection of songs inside a hotel is to be considered just as different and inspiring.

H.E.A.T, Live In London. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The lands of Scandinavian thought might not come shamefully readily to the attention of the British public when it comes to being considered the home of great Rock bands in the last thirty years.  However, raw and sublime talent keeps being unearthed and especially in Rock and Metal circles keeps pinning down the British contribution of late in a near one-sided bout.

The Path Of Delicate Flowers

The river runs deep if it is allowed to flow freely

and the clutter and wreckage of the abandoned shopping trolley

covered in slime, the mess of one generation passed down

to another in shrink wrapped, tightly wrapped, always trapped;

is removed and placed far out of sight.

The free flowing river, the conscious of independent thought

should not be stunted, diverted and allowed to stagnate in some form

of pruning cultivation, the flower should be allowed to grow

and take over the muddy ground that lays along the bank,

Midsomer Murders: A Vintage Murder. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Fiona Dolman, Tamzin Malleson, Sabrina Bartlett, Max Bennett, Claire Bloom, Mark Bonnar, Rosie Cavaliero, Wayne Foskett, Ruth Gemmell, Selina Griffiths, Tom Rhys Harries, Jaye Jacobs, Naoki Mori, Lloyd Owen.

There seems to be a fascination with the art of British wine making and the artistry of sensational jealous murder, it’s almost as if wine brings out the worst in those with evil nefarious intent and there is a subtle unsaid notion that the more natural drinks of the islands just leave you worse for wear, that there is no jealousy over a 40 year old Balvenie Malt apart from who gets the last amber drop.

Ian Siegal, One Night In Amsterdam. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For the purists of such things, it takes at least a long weekend to get lost in the thoughts and melee that Amsterdam has to offer before time spent there can make the foundation of songs in which to be immersed in.  One night surely cannot be enough, it’s barely enough time to find the mayonnaise at Schipol Airport for a plate of chips, take in the pleasantries that the cobbled stones provide the abundance of cyclists as on road entertainment or to savour the well founded truth that the Dutch are arguably some of the nicest people in the world and yet One Night in Amsterdam is all that is needed to understand that Ian Siegal’s second live album in under a year is an absolute belter.

The Rapper’s Delight.

The Rapper smiles at the free soap box he is given

and he uses it, controls it, manipulates and exploits it,

until the box irrevocably falls to pieces,

joist by rusted nail, plank by frayed duct tape…

yet even when his vitriol makes no sense, when the fans

take the shit he spouts to be gospel and they don’t even

question music history and the small cog in a connecting  wheel

he plays, admittedly a hundred times bigger than the mechanism

I run at full speed upon and forever going backwards,

Thunder, Wonder Days. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Memories of our youth are perhaps the greatest we hold onto. They are the ghostly images in which form and shape the future and they are the ones that remind us of how far we have come. Youth though also works to remind us that every day we wake up and put our feet on the cold hard floor that we have a debt to owe our former selves and the need to better our position, spiritually as well as mentally, is burned into the back of a black and white photograph hidden somewhere in an insect nibbled box.