Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/0
To suggest we come from nothing is to dismiss all that your ancestors, close relatives or long since forgotten forebears achieved in their lifetime and passed in down through memory and tales, it is to suggest that lives were of little consequence to the world, that it is only through your own existence that Time has been fortunate and that yourself have the power of changing history.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Impressive, moving, imposing itself upon the senses and the mind from the very start until its final lament, such is the striking set of songs brought forth under the banner of Stand Up Now – A Compilation Of Folk Agricultural Folk Songs, that it takes a while for the listener to find their composure once more in the face of extraordinary beauty and honesty, that those three initial thoughts are but the first in a long line of adjectives that make the heart sing when listening to the various artists on offer.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The nature of our times dictates that we believe we have more freedom than we have ever had, and yet we have become more entrenched in the cage that keeps apart from what is important, the open spaces, wide, reliable, unfailing in consistency; and instead, we cling to the incongruous and absurd, the unsuitable and ill-fitting straight jacket that locks us up securely, and we praise its ability to do so.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.