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By The Rivers, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

March may have been blown in the back of the worst set of winter storms in living memory but the thought of sunshine, weather so perfect you could just turn on the radio and dream of Henry Blofeld delivering a perfectly delivered and seamless soliloquy in praise of a six by Curtly Ambrose and strawberries being placed in your mouth by a toga wearing Roman is never too far away. That dream of summer, of the lazy perfect day was bought ever closer by the Leicester band By The Rivers who were support for the legendary Ska band The Selecter on the opening day of March.

By The Rivers, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

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

Voices 2, Theatre Review. 81 Renshaw Street, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Performers: Paul Taylor, Elaine Stewart, Edwina Lee, Esther Dix, James Bray, Helen Kerr.

Writers: Mark Anthony Rossi, Anthony Ellison, Mary Vigar, Sally Fildes-Moss, Mark Konik, Richard Lyon Conlon.

In September of 2013 Grin Theatre paved the way for a new way of looking at writing and performing in Liverpool with six monologues crafted by writers who weren’t known to the public. These six monologues formed the basis of the first Voices performed at 81 Renshaw Street. If something works as they say, keep going, and Kiefer Williams and Helen Kerr of Grin Theatre have done just that by hosting a very cool night of six different monologues for Voices 2, each individual, each creatively interesting and all carried out by the various performers’ voices with great care and reverence.

Voices 2, Theatre Review. 81 Renshaw Street, Liverpool. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Only Lovers Left Alive, Film Review. Fact Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, John Hurt, Anton Yelchin, Jeffry Wright, Slimane Dazi, Carter Logan, Aureile Thpaut, Cody Stauber, Kamal Moumad, Yasmine Hamden, Ali Arnine.

Where else would you find vampires consorting with the great Kit Marlow, where a man who has lived for centuries has inspired and guided some of the great musicians in human history, where melancholy reigns with perverse glee and in which the layered messages of moral vampires go hand in hand with a judgement of humanity’s ever increasing faults but in the cinema.

Only Lovers Left Alive, Film Review. Fact Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(545 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

The Book Thief, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Roger Allam, Sophie Nélisse, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, Heike Makatch, Julian Lehmann, Gotthard Lange, Rainer Reiners, Kirsten Block, Nico Liersch, Ludger Bökelmann, Paul Schaefer,  Nozomi Linus Kaisar, Oliver Stokowski, Robert Beyer, Hildegard Schroedter, Levin Liam, Ben Schnetzer, Sandra Nedeleff, Rafael Gareisen, Carl Heinz Choynski, Carina N. Wiese, Stephanie Stremler, Rainer Bock, Sebastian Hülk, Barbara Auer, Matthias Matschke, Jan Andres.

When Death speaks, it is wise to listen…

The Book Thief, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(661 words, estimated 2:39 mins reading time)

Inspector George Gently: Gently Going Under. Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Lucy Cohu, Poppy Lee Frair, Michael Socha, Simon Greenall, Lewis Reeves, Jack Deam, Dale Meeks, Ralph Ineson, Simon Hubbard, Jane Elizabeth Walsh, Jaqueline Philips, Anna Bolton, Nicholas Rowe, Rick Warden.

Inspector George Gently: Gently Going Under. Television Review. B.B.C. Television. full post

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

Punt And Dennis: Ploughing On Regardless. Comedy Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Clever comedy used to be sneered at, it would be seen by some as the preserve of a university system that was, possibly rightly, too elite for many to understand. Perhaps with the great timing that the Cosmos affords us, the only creatures on the planet that deal in time as a concept rather than just the way of marking the difference between night and day or when to mate and eat and die, the 20th Anniversary of the legendary American Bill Hicks’ passing has been more kind to this type of humour.

Punt And Dennis: Ploughing On Regardless. Comedy Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Red Pine Timber Company, Different Lonesome. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There has always been an independent spirit that runs through Scotland, no matter the current discussions that are being fought over on the line that separates the Saltire and the cross of St. George, the music sits proudly in the veins of all who either live North of Carlisle or who have grown up admiring it, the thought of the Highland mist, the taste of Scotch whisky hanging round like the rallying call from the Clans. Add though the touch of the Americana to the music, the big band scene, the brandy cask with 40 year old Balvenie shaking hands and embracing its Bourbon cousin Jack Daniels and seeing the heady mix meld into a debut album by the Red Pine Timber Company that is as sturdy as Scottish hospitality and as creative as the carvings of Mount Rushmore seen in pure sunshine.

Red Pine Timber Company, Different Lonesome. Album Review. full post

(438 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Maisie Young, Sarah Hale, Sarah Gallegos, Miles Braithwaite, James Markham, Phil Teles Amaro, Abigail Fitzgerald, Michael Bryan, Blair Smith.

If you had not purchased a programme and read for yourselves the biographies of the individuals on the stage, then there will be many gasps of astonishment when you discover that not all the incredible cast are training to be actors. Whilst reading that one is a Pharmacology student and then casting your eye further down the page to discover a Psychology student in amongst the names, you might be forgiven in thinking that this perhaps is just another run of the mill student show.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(454 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Behemoth, The Satanist. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 91/2/10

Like a monster rising out of the shadowy depths, the colossus and the titanic seem to feed on the range of emotions given off by all who come into contact with it. However there is one giant from behind the former Iron Curtain that could put The Green Knight of Arthurian legend or the flawed destroyer of Grendel to shame.

Behemoth, The Satanist. Album Review. full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Soweto Necklace, Beasts Of The Southern Interior. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * *

The name of the band may be named after a means to perform execution in Africa but there is nothing lifeless about Soweto Necklace, quite the contrary judging by their E.P. Beasts of the Southern Interior, they are fresh, exciting and something different to the ears that can only bring a smile to the face as their infectious rhythms and interplayed harmonies, along with rather ambitious music, strikes the tune for a distinctive beat.

Soweto Necklace, Beasts Of The Southern Interior. E.P. Review. full post

(392 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)