Category Archives: Music

The Royal Hounds, A Whole Lot Of Nothin’. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

In a time of uncertainty, the act of conviction, faith, and inevitability will carry weight where those who profess to forgone conclusions, supposition, and rumour, will fear to tread.

The sceptics in the world have A Whole Lot of Nothin’ to prove except their own downfalls and the words they sometimes choke upon, for nothin’ ain’t worth a thing, unless it has the swing, the grove and the power of illumination in a world that seems hell bent on finding ways for us all to sit and worry ourselves to death in the dark.

The Royal Hounds, A Whole Lot Of Nothin’. Album Review. full post

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

Novy Zembler, Upstairs. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

An E.P. will afford the listener a greater slice of time in which to become acquainted with the music than a single release will; the only downside is that if the first track does not grab them, then unlike the weighty option of the vinyl grandparent of the 12-inch album, the chances are that the listener will slide the music into the obscure pile and move onto something else quickly.

Novy Zembler, Upstairs. E.P. Review. full post

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

Justin Bernasconi, Sleeping Like A Maniac. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Our worst regrets in life are those that are captured by the glow of harshness that shines directly into our eyes, shone as if by a raging beacon by those that love us, that care for our hearts and minds. It is those regrets, those moments when our actions cause pain, hurt and misery to those we have held closely in our lives, that cause the most distress and can leave us Sleeping Like A Maniac.

Justin Bernasconi, Sleeping Like A Maniac. Album Review. full post

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

Midland Railway, One Day. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One Day…it is the lie and the hope we tell each ourselves, the moment when we decide firmly that we wish to attempt to own a slice of time that is forever ours; whether we achieve it or not is not in the lap of the gods or the dictation of fate, it is whether we believe the lie enough to see it become reality, or we cloud our judgement by insisting that the truth of success is unobtainable, that hope sits in the same imposing chair as scornful optimism and cannot be budged by sheer human effort.

Midland Railway, One Day. Single Review. full post

(321 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

David Neville King, Marko Cigaro. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision 9/10

To have your essence, your personality, your soul, captured by an artist is perhaps the sincerest sign of immortality that one person can bestow upon another.

We become excited by the thought of seeing ourselves on the television, maybe filmed at a concert in the front row, or at a football match where the scorer of the decisive goal rushes to the crowd to celebrate, and the camera picks you out; screen shot saved for all eternity. Yet that fleeting rush is only produced because of the single moment, not one framed by the eyes of an artist who sees beneath the skin veneer and the outer shell and who appreciates the soul enough to weave into existence a song that truly marks you out as being remarkable; a human being with a story to tell.

David Neville King, Marko Cigaro. Single Review. full post

(367 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Queensrÿche, Operation:Mindcrime (2021 Deluxe Edition). Album Review

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The artistic endeavour behind a fully immersive concept album is one that for the most part is sadly lacking from today’s required listening; even the concept album itself, aside from being practised by a few hardy souls, seems to have fallen by the wayside.

It seems to be instead, simply okay to sew together a few loose threads under a banner of tropes and ideas and place it under the banner to which so many in the past have sweated over the construction and assembly of a story which resonates, which has its own lengthy pulse sharpened, the structure of the machine whirring as the introduction, the rise and fall of the protagonist unveils a masterpiece with no illusion, only painstaking beauty at its heart.

Queensrÿche, Operation:Mindcrime (2021 Deluxe Edition). Album Review full post

(633 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

Rory Gallagher, Rory Gallagher (50th Anniversary Boxset).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Legends are not just presented to the crowd fully formed, all smiles and P.R. presentable, they are cultivated, they have a history, they have lived in the dirt, soaked up the atmosphere of a thousand disappointments, and they perhaps bow out before their time.

Rory Gallagher, Rory Gallagher (50th Anniversary Boxset). full post

(580 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

Eric Bibb, Dear America. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is a memory for most of us, the moment when the schoolteacher would ask the pupils under their guidance to write a letter to their future selves, to imagine, if possible, how their lives panned out, what hopes, untold, and as yet unthought desires have happened in their lives and which shaped the future.

Eric Bibb, Dear America. Album Review. full post

(621 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)

Hunted, Deliver Us. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Rules, like cliches, are meant not only be broken, but they are also there to be smashed, destroyed, never put in place in the first instance; for if we abide by the rules, then the defiance of transgression in art is a criminal act, and the only point that will Deliver Us from the beige and the obsession with dull routine is one that delights in placing all human emotions into the same category and the same state of mind.

Hunted, Deliver Us. Album Review. full post

(540 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Robert Jon & The Wreck, Shine A Light On Me Brother. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

When asked to illuminate the path so that others may follow in your footsteps, it is not so that they can steal your limelight, nor is it because they are wary of treading off the path and ending in the quagmire of disillusion and disappointment, it is because they have witnessed the stride and measure of the beauty you have spread along the way, and they want to stroll past the same flowering buds, and help make them grow.

Robert Jon & The Wreck, Shine A Light On Me Brother. Album Review. full post

(433 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)