Author Archives: admin

10cc: Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Gig Review. (2024)

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Ever the consummate professional, Graham Gouldman requires no introduction, the music he and the rest of 10cc created is understood from the first bar, and universally enjoyed; and once more the band of merry, and talented groove setters rolled into Liverpool as part of their Ultimate Ultimate Tour, and the result was one that was the sense of perfection, sweet, accomplished, complete and exact proof of the legendary status of the music, and of the longevity of spirit of those that created them.

10cc: Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Gig Review. (2024) full post

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

Ma Polaine’s Great Decline: Molecules. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Those attractive forces that bind us together, a wicked game they conceive when they know we will fall for the art that comes our way.

Ma Polaine’s Great Decline sees the Somerset pairing of Beth Packer and Clint Hough return to the music lover’s attention with their brand new studio album, Molecules, and it is with ever open arms and fondness for the uniquely sounding artists that the public will offer for the spiritual heroes of the dark introspection and commitment of the mix and jazz and blues/folk one of joy; those attractive forces once more in the hands of masters of story telling with song form.

Ma Polaine’s Great Decline: Molecules. Album Review. full post

(411 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

John Meed: A Sudden Rain. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We all love a storyteller, their words and means of delivery are at the heart of the essence of humanity; and yet we perhaps don’t give them all the credit they deserve, only venerating themselves when the emotions fall, in the audience’s mind, like A Sudden Rain that comes out of the ether and refreshes all it touches, turning parched ground to a forest of green, idyllic, lush grass.

John Meed: A Sudden Rain. Album Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: Stranded 2. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Rebecca Root, Tom Price, Tom Baker, Oscar Batterham, Stewart Clarke, Jeremy Clyde, Jon Culshaw, Joel James Davison, Annabelle Dowler, Ewan Goddard, Avita Jay, Anjli Shaw-Parker, Homer Todiwala, Venice Van Someren, Amina Zia.

Time and memory are not always compatible bed follows. Quite often the two fight each other for the supremacy of the human experience, one taking from the other without a second thought, almost at war in terms of progression.

Doctor Who: Stranded 2. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

The Marlow Murder Club. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, Natalie Dew, Mark Frost, Holli Dempsey, Rita Tushingham, Niall Costigan, Ian Barritt, Daniel Lapaine, Juliet Howland, Phill Langhorne, Sophia Ally, Tijan Sarr, Molly Hanson, Phillipa Peak, Teagan Imani, Matthew Bates, Ella Kenion, Rufus Wright, Umit Ulgen, Rishi Nair, Ethan Quinn, Amelia Valentina Pankhania, Yiannis Vassilakis, Mark Fleishmann, Matt Green, Edward Howells, Sherise Blackman, Eleanor Nawal, Tristan Sturrock, Kim Wall.

When strangers on a train conspire to murder, what the universe experiences is an unbalance, a sense of unhinged instability that such souls could act as each other’s alibi to cause harm and confound the restoration of balance.

The Marlow Murder Club. Television Drama Review. full post

(609 words, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

Buffalo Skinners: Picking Up What You’re Putting Down. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We lay a trail in the hope that someone comes along and gathers the signal and instruction we leave hanging in the ether so that it may be translated, so that we know in our heart our message has been heard.

Picking Up What You’re Putting Down is the understanding that we are more than our own shadows, we are the means of reception to others to have their thoughts interpreted, to send their voice onwards, and like a CB  radio being used in the darkness of the home of a teenager in Britain during the 70s and 80s, the sounds we hear and notice are exotic and deeply engrained in a world once out of our reach.

Buffalo Skinners: Picking Up What You’re Putting Down. Album Review. full post

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

Dion: Girl Friends. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Surround yourself with the best and the best that you can be reveals itself without caution, without restraint, with genuine pleasure and playful liberation of the soul.

A line up of a galaxy of stars in the heavens could not improve upon the aural spectacle that is refined and purposely driven with a groove of splendour in the new album from the legendary American hero Dion, Girl Friends.

Dion: Girl Friends. Album Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: Stranded – 1. Big Finish Audio Drama Boxset Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Rebecca Root, Tom Price, Tom Baker, Aurora Burghart, Jeremy Clyde, Alan Cox, Joel James Davison, Raj Ghatak, Robert Portal, David Shaw-Parker, Clive Wood, Amina Zia.

You may love somewhere and proudly call it a home from home, a favourite place to be, an affinity with the locals, a connection with its history; but if you find that you have become Stranded, marooned upon its beaches because your mode of transport has given up the ghost and no sign of rescue is forthcoming; then your paradise, that one place you like to visit and catch up with its inhabitants can suddenly turn into a world of dull routine, your visit now a land of disagreeable anecdotes as you understand the point of view by those always trapped in the grey where once you saw colour.

Doctor Who: Stranded – 1. Big Finish Audio Drama Boxset Review. full post

(521 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Nicki Adams and Michael Eaton: The Transcendental. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The world of Jazz has arguably never been more accessible and in rude health. Indeed, when compared to other forms of music it is one that whilst adopted by those who loved the anonymity provided by the venues and the once smoky atmosphere, has been recognised as offering the listener something new and novel each time they hear an artist perform a section of music that crosses the boundary between the human and the sense of spiritual excess challenges.

Nicki Adams and Michael Eaton: The Transcendental. Album Review. full post

(370 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Bruce Dickinson: The Mandrake Project. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

On the back of greatness, we often find ourselves wondering how we can achieve an even larger, more vast declaration of intent.

Close to two full decades since Bruce Dickinson found his way into the recording studio without any back up from the Iron Maiden family, The Mandrake Project is that album of glorious purpose after a run of seismic recordings from Eddie’s boys that returned them rightfully to the top ten charts, and in doing so scored their first number one in the U.K. since the release of the scintillating Fear Of The Dark. 

Bruce Dickinson: The Mandrake Project. Album Review. full post

(424 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)