Category Archives: Music

Victory, Gods Of Tomorrow. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Those deities we worship, those supernatural beings who judge, chastise, and inspire us, and to whom we either blame for our misfortune or act in reverence of when we find ourselves in need of spiritual uplift, those invisible beings in which we venerate will one day be considered past tense and the Gods Of Tomorrow will surely take charge. As with the old guards of Norse, of Roman and Greek persuasion, of those that sacrificed souls during a phase of the Moon, eventually all religions are superseded, all gods must fade away or perish at the hands of evolution.

Victory, Gods Of Tomorrow. Album Review. full post

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

The Little Unsaid, December Songs. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Those tunes we hear at the start of June make our summers memorable, those melodies and refrains we feel dig beneath the surface of post new year’s ice and snow are the backdrop to the time ahead, but the final month of the year, those songs we hear that saturate the airwaves with their association of overspending, the failure of a system propped up by casual bonhomie as we dive in and out of shops armed to the teeth with regret and credit cards, those are the jingles that signal the end, that dictate how we view the year as a whole.

The Little Unsaid, December Songs. Album Review. full post

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

No Captains, Friends Like These. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

One of the beauties of life is that occasionally you get to hear a sound that you are pretty sure you have never heard before. For the audiophile, the melomaniac, or even the one who walks through the forest listening for the brave late call of a lesser spotted bird as it hunts for its dinner, the cause in which they search is for something new that catches their ears is the reason for harmony, for enlightenment, for a sense of truth in a world that insists that there is nothing new under the sun.

No Captains, Friends Like These. Album Review. full post

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

Lordi, Abracadaver. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

From such dreams, reality is created…and ambition to bring about the seemingly impossible must never be ignored.

The announcement of seven albums inside three months from acclaimed Finnish band Lordi might have struck fear in the hearts of the music lover, for how many bands have even gifted the world two in a year and seen the bottom fall out of the public’s affection; and when a certain Neo-Punk from the United States of America produced three inside a couple of months back in 2012 the fall out was heard across the world, forever putting the idea of multiple releases in such a short space of time out of the public domain.

Lordi, Abracadaver. Album Review. full post

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

Ian Prowse, One Hand On The Starry Plough. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To turn the means of another person’s war to that of peace, requires insight, observation, skilled diplomacy, righteous anger, and patience. Although in a world that is slowly turning itself inside out, threatening to tear proverbial limb from limb, and in a place where its wrongs have forever either gone unnoticed by its populace, or even aided by its subjects, to have One Hand On The Starry Plough is not only act of defiance against a set of people in ties and suits using nefarious means and counting on blind faith to push back against progress and compassion, it is a right of self-preservation, an appropriate response to the mass hate, the rank hypocrisy of those who offer you nothing but subjugation.

Ian Prowse, One Hand On The Starry Plough. Album Review. full post

(551 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Sean Taylor, The Beat Goes On. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

How far can a song take you, how much are we willing to allow, to permit your heart to feeling the direction of dichotomy as it lurches like an out-of-control pendulum between heartbreak and affirmation of spirit. As both emotions centre of the self, as they govern how other’s see us at our most vulnerable, The Beat Goes On is the understanding that the heart and mind are there to remind us to keep believing we will not surrender to others who demand defeat and capitulation of the soul.

Sean Taylor, The Beat Goes On. Album Review. full post

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

Treetop Flyers, Old Habits. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Old Habits don’t just die hard, they are the building blocks to the emotions we feel, to what we experience later, and the hope that somewhere the new customs we forge and the behaviours that took us unblinkingly to the moment of inspiration merge and create additional, original thinking.

We cannot dismiss the habits of our youth, whether they were ill-intentioned or pieces of the puzzle that is by definition us; they are there in our past like marionettes, the strings being pulled by our own external force, waiting to dance to a novel and flavoursome tune.

Treetop Flyers, Old Habits. Album Review. full post

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

The Beatles: Get Back. Television Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

What is offered for commercial gain is not the full story, and quite often the full story never sees the cold light of day.

We have all seen what we believed was a cog in The Beatles story, culminating in a London roof top performance in which the ‘Fab Four’ showcased several songs that were to become part of the legend and myth of the group’s legacy; and yet what was presented, as with all edits, conflicts of interests, and trickeries of presentation, was barely even the surface of what was scratched, and as the crowds gathered, as bowler hatted men, as young girls and bemused, disgruntled police officers gathered in their masses, the idea of getting back was sold to the world.

The Beatles: Get Back. Television Film Review. full post

(611 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Jim Davies, Prey Later. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Prey Later, but first get the job done. A mantra to live by when plundering the depths of the soul in search of substance, in search of the body that sustains, to hunt down your prey or pray for salvation, either must give in to the primal urge of seeing the plan laid down in which to take affirmative action.

It is a mantra that Pitchshifter/The Prodigy’s Jim Davies has certainly absorbed as he follows up his debut album Headwars with his subsequent offering to an eager nation in the dynamic, dirty and industrialised Prey Later.

Jim Davies, Prey Later. Album Review. full post

(387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Schattenmann, Chaos. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One person’s chaos is another’s organised anarchy, and for the one who stands between the two states of being, it is the upheaval of the tornado of souls that scatters all life around them who can, for a while at least, appreciate the natural order of division.

Chaos, Schattenmann’s third studio album, is a combination of high intensity metal, but one delivered with the preciousness of steadfast observation in a world that requires tough love, but one that also feels that art and all its creativity is a finer way to show humanity and civilisation that quite often that what we perceive as chaos is actually continual revolution.

Schattenmann, Chaos. Album Review. full post

(338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)