Category Archives: Music

Joanne Shaw Taylor, Reckless Heart. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

A Reckless Heart is easy to find, one with soul and creative joy oozing out of every moment it is held is rare, seldom seen but heard of in whispers, as if containing elements of myth and magic within its weaved grooves; for in every reckless heart that embraces the world with art there stands a sculptor and a surgeon fashioning the wounded nucleus of the body with extra compassion and spirit, one that gathers strength to sing, not whisper, of all that caused the rashness and wild to storm the streets and love all they came into contact with.

Joanne Shaw Taylor, Reckless Heart. Album Review. full post

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

Ian Prowse, Here I Lie. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In a world that insists on pushing more than one handcart towards Hell, it often takes a sincere conveyor of words and acute observation to make you stop and think of just how love and honour can arrest the final slide into oblivion, how a small momentary glance can unveil a wealth of information to which many who insist that they are blind, will force their eyes open and make them challenge their personal, and sometimes dogmatic, views.

Ian Prowse, Here I Lie. Album Review. full post

(468 words, 1 image, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Robin Trower, Coming Closer To The Day. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Creativity has no expiry date, there are no rules which dictate an age barrier to the artistic and productive flow and yet quite often we find ourselves extolling the virtues of the young and never giving credit to those whose time on Earth has been filled with the pursuit of all that is inventive and original. It sometimes must feel that the film Logan’s Run was just a radical idea taken up and put in place, that the philosophy detailed is Coming Closer To The Day when we disavow anything that has been fashioned by anybody older than a certain age.

Robin Trower, Coming Closer To The Day. Album Review. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

The Loch Ness Mouse, The Loch Ness Mouse II. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

If only a winning formula was available to those who seek inspiration but often find that their time is not in the right place, that their heart, for all their worth and experience, for all that they endeavour to achieve, is perhaps missing out because they strike out blindly and without the aid of knowing that all along what they needed to do was follow the rules of succession, namely that being recognised as unique and rare will attract the stories that are in search of exclusivity and passion.

The Loch Ness Mouse, The Loch Ness Mouse II. Album Review. full post

(493 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Cary Balsano, Versailles. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is not that we feel fear as a response to the moment we are confronted by the creatures that inhabit the darkness but that we shall find the fear is the greatest weapon we have in arsenal to combat and disarm the demons. It is in resolution to be greater than we are that we seek out the challenge instead of sheltering behind a wall, closed off, lacking in hope and valour, for once we remember who is watching us, we understand how courage works.

Cary Balsano, Versailles. Single Review. full post

(360 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Jon Fratelli, Bright Night Flowers. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

They say that an artist should never find themselves continually painting the same view on the canvas before them, it stunts the overall vision, the observation, and whilst that particular canvas will show the continuing age, the scenic era as it blossoms and corrodes with time and be remarked upon for the one frame changes, it does nothing for the artist that they cannot surround themselves with other scenes, take in different ideas and paint with words, with pictures, with thoughts; change is necessary and essential to keep the art thought-provoking and stimulating the nerves of those who seek it out.

Jon Fratelli, Bright Night Flowers. Album Review. full post

(426 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Dido, Still On My Mind. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Not everybody likes the idea of Earl Grey tea being the signature tune in which to start their day, some prefer the idea of an infusion of exotic tastes to infiltrate their daily boundary, the skirmish between the beauty of sleep and the rigour of the time ahead which promises excitement, or arguably the same old, same old.

Dido, Still On My Mind. Album Review. full post

(526 words, 1 image, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Bryan Adams, Shine A Light. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Looking forward it always seems perfectly sensible to Shine A Light into the darkness, into the unexpected and day to day unknown, the challenging, often energy draining, action comes with taking that light and looking at where you have been, behind you, into the past where such regrets and missed opportunities come back to not only haunt you but to make you feel conspicuous as to your mind set in the present day.

Bryan Adams, Shine A Light. Album Review. full post

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

Bob Leslie, The Barren Fig. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 9/10


The curated sense of the critic will often dismiss a piece of art because it doesn’t suit their view of the world. All that they learned perhaps in the mud and avoiding arrows of open-mindedness is left to become bleak, a simmering condescension of opinions, desolate, and one that is left to become sterile, and all because it finally came across that they didn’t care, that they no longer gave a damn to how the view of the world has changed since they first drew fiery breathe.

Bob Leslie, The Barren Fig. Album Review. full post

(463 words, 1 image, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Natalie McCool, Women’s World. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is no such thing as a beautiful minefield, there is only the dream of utopia, but it comes with a cost that some are happy to wash away, almost cleanse, how they got to that situation in the first place, when history is written, invariably it has been from a point of view that has determined the loudest voices have had their say first, and to the detriment of others, to the subjugation, a certain view point has been lost, been allowed to have been censured and erased.

Natalie McCool, Women’s World. Single Review. full post

(411 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)