Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is something just right about the way that Anti-Flag conduct their lives when it comes to recording music and performing a live set, it is almost as if the stance against anything that comes across as main stream or has even the barest whiff of corporate attached to it, is to be shunned as far as it can go and then given the nod of ridicule just to annoy it further.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To feel warm and comfortable in the presence of an album is to have a simple realisation thrust down the ears that not everything in life has to have a secret meaning but it at least must have desire, it must be able to be embraced and found to succumb to the one beautiful moment that keeps all in the same boundary of existence; the ability to smile.
Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * *
The pleasure of the alternative must never be taken for granted. It is only in searching and finding the alternative approach that a measure of understanding for the whole of the sum can be appreciated, that the recognition of a different song can be seen in all its glory.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There should always be a part of the day, no matter for how long or where it takes place, that to give thanks, to be Grateful, should be insisted upon as a rite of keeping in touch with our basic humanity. Instead of the ever-increasing demanding shouts of “This is my right, I know what my privileges are and I want them”, perhaps the long lost art of appreciating even the smallest gesture of good-will, the nod from a passing stranger, should be one that grabs the soul. To be Grateful, is to feel alive.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The concept album may be one that sits with highly prized satisfaction in the realms of Progressive Rock and even in the hearts of some of its heavier cousins and the beautifully placed arrangements that Classical holds without alluding to the term, yet in the hands of the imaginative and the bold, it can be just as sublime, just as terrifyingly simple to achieve the desired effect. For the Mono Sideboards, The Pains of Being Frank Lamb is a concept that all can identify with and can empathise totally.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Christmas and the subsequent passing of the hour in which the twelve days of the festive season melds seamlessly with the dying of the twelve months of yet another forceful bout with Time, come but once a year. In the hands of the corporate, the period can descend into slush, mawkishness and frightful displays of money corrupting the ideal of what the period is meant to be about.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The sound of the cloister bell calling to arms is never truly far away from the ears of devoted, it is also never too far from the calling out of the name of the spiritual guide that directs the way of thinking when the creative mood takes hold, whether that is the form of devotion or the desecration of the soul is up to those inflamed by its desire.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The sound of delicate fury was already apparent with Tinlin’s album Shade of the Shadows, the allusion set out by brothers Rolf and Alex to the divine soul that stirs the emotions in the same vein of the likes of Del Amitri and Simon and Garfunkel, a sense of perfect beginnings for the band.
The shadows though are there though to always be dispelled, to have the allusion cracked and the legend enhanced, the shadows are only there to hide behind after all and to come out from the tentative start into fully flourished group, to make the shadows bathe in sunlight, you have to go into the realms of a mood which is Strangely Blue.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There are reasons why the Universe never seems to be in sync with how reality should be perceived; it is a fundamental law that it is lop-sided, askew and quite cruel. Like Time, it offers humanity the barest glimpses of something beautiful and then hides it away from the vast majority of the world and shrouds it in a gilded veil that many will not venture beyond their sofas to see. It is the Universe’s technique of allowing some to be seen as Wasting Away.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
You can be as radical as you like, you can aspire to change, to grasp the opportunity to experiment beyond the natural borders of your own self imposed limits, what you should never do, not least without care and attention to the past is to dilute the artistry created by divulging your work with others who will arguably take it down to a level that might not be appreciated by many.