Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Captivated is the heart when it finds itself focused on a sound that feels as though a door has been opened nearby and the sweet smell of petrichor wafts through on the breeze and leads you to a place where you know the intensity of everyday bombardment has been nullified and that remains is calm and the difference of eased pressure.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The Space Where You Should Be is often filled with the ghosts of others who are determined to gatekeep success and enlightenment as a preserve of the envious and resentful, those who see your power or even your potential and focus only on keeping you out lest you displace their coveted position in people’s hearts and minds.
Mike Ryan’s place is assured through the tenacity of progression and the refusal to bow to the dogmas of war and musical dramas of another’s plectrum and strings, and as the haunting and cool procession of his brand new album, The Space Where You Should Be, settles on the dust of the past and raises its own place where heavenly sounds can be heard.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
These Restless Hearts of ours are in eager need of comfort, they expect reassurance from love and the meaning of art as it eases those emotional shocks and confusions of loss, and faith. The commotions of navigating the errant nature of Time as it bypasses us, streaks by in the blink of an eye, and the disturbances of love that cause the organ at the very centre of our being to wobble and become distressed at times when we require stability and firmness of spirit.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Whilst we may crave for the unique lyric that catches our attention, that one line that wants us to embrace its message and sing its virtue out loud as if it has become a mantra, a modern hymn of rejoice or sorrow filled chant that digs deep into the art of melancholy, it is to the building block of the song, of the album, that allows the listener’s imagination to be encouraged, to be stimulated by the virtue of the complete instrumental curated for maximum thought and confident rhythm of life.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
From The Wild, never from peace, do the offerings of ingenuity flourish. It almost feels innate to humanity’s progression that in throws of chaos we find ways to exert influence, muscle, and persuasion to pour our very being into sharp focus; and as Finnish newcomers Phantomy aptly show in their debut release, From The Wild, the lessons forged in heat are the ones that capture the raw intensity of our soul and wilful determination to be heard.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
We lose faith in ourselves quicker than we do others, at times we can look at ourselves in the mirror and see the face of the one that holds us back, whose existence can mock us without reproach, and we feel the agency of anger and the motivation of attack from that which comes from within because we realise with certainty that The Enemy Is Us, and it frightens us, it terrifies us, and yet can create through the tension such art that it acts as a salve, as a calming liniment of appeasement.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
For many different reasons we may ask of ourselves what has become of the America we loved, the post war influence on modern culture that caught the likes of Generation X in its opportunity and the promise of freedom from the wasted youth and lost home grown government blandness, or even a haven for the Millennial seeking inspiration in social issues and the recent of music from the land of the neo-punk and new goth standards, all would feel entitles to ask what has become of America.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Never apologise for who you are, never express contriteness for the sound you create, look the public in the eye and dare them to find fault in the majesty of expression, of your individuality.
It is a lesson that any artist finds themselves always continually testing the limits of, what could grab the attention of the new possible listener or sticking to the guns and delivering a purity of no-nonsense Punk Rock delivery with a volley of drums and a passion for rebellious disobedience you are known for.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Attitude in the wrong hands can be devastating to the conscious of those caught up in the maelstrom, a cyclone that sweeps you off your feet and leaves you with nothing but broken and shattered dreams of unfulfilled truth and dreams. Attitude in the right hands is perplexingly cool, you don’t know you have been entangled in the wind and storm until you reach the apex of the motion and see beyond the horizon, for what is to be witnessed is power wielded with impervious brilliance.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Those that strive to fit in lose something of themselves in the process, they intentionally misplace the ability to celebrate a uniqueness to which their destiny wrote for them with kindness; to stand proud and waving a flag of individual groove at the Misfit’s Jamboree should be the ultimate face of expression in a world that promotes blandness and the lacking of talent above the sincere matchless exclusivity offered by the creatively astute.