Category Archives: Music

Ian Prowse, Compañeros. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Ian Prowse has set aside drawing on his own prolific output to introduce the listener to some of the songwriters he has encountered over the years. “Troubadours”, as he describes them, whose songs have been “lost, trodden down in the mud, or were kicked sideways into the ditch by an unforgiving music industry.” It’s a magnanimous gesture and one that will reward all concerned in the album  Compañeros.

Ian Prowse credits Kevin Jamieson (Town and Country Blues) for inspiring him to imbue his music with the Celtic Soul that had “entered his being like a musical Toronto Blessing.” It’s a Latinate/country romp during which Ian Prowse seems to have discovered a new vocal style, almost a growl.

Ian Prowse, Compañeros. Album Review. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Dave McCabe & The Ramifications, Church Of Miami. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Miami is not only a place, it is an institution. A city in which British travellers minds may turn to when thinking of the one place on America’s Eastern continental edge to which the history (New York, Philadelphia, Boston), the gambling and sense of old style profiteering (New Jersey) and the consequence of squabbles, in fighting and racial tension, (anywhere that verges and bleeds into North V South) play almost no part; Miami is the Mediterranean of the North Americas, it is the place to go when everything else has been done and what should be next is the rest and relaxation, the apparent fun and the soulful looking for meaning in later life. Miami is not a place; it is a state of mind.

Dave McCabe & The Ramifications, Church Of Miami. Album Review. full post

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

Geoghegan Jackson, Parlour In The Sun. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is always time for the harmony and the beauty of lyrical aspiration to join forces in this world, when they do there is a certain potency of achievement that comes through in any piece of art that is laid bare for the audience to hear, see and immerse themselves into.

Geoghegan Jackson, Parlour In The Sun. E.P. Review. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

David Gilmour, Rattle That Lock. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

There have been so few solo albums performed by David Gilmour that waiting for one to arrive is akin to finding the winning lottery numbers two weeks on the trot and knowing that you will share that joy with millions of others.

David Gilmour, Rattle That Lock. Album Review. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Chantel McGregor, Lose Control. Album Review.

 

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Control is everything when it comes to be true to your core beliefs, your own artistic barometer, without it manipulation of the senses and a kind of imposed domination is the dangerous step into the void.

Sometimes though losing control is just exquisite, it is the building block of something quite extraordinary and whether it is through just going with the dynamic or the groove, control in all its forms and influences cannot, and should not, be easily dismissed. It is the good judgment and significant thought to understand that restraint does not have to be rigid, flat and uninspired, it just needs to Lose Control at all the right times.

Chantel McGregor, Lose Control. Album Review. full post

(397 words, 1 image, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

A-ha, Cast In Steel. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Long before the Norwegian and Scandinavian invasion became a sublime permanent fixture on the ears of British music lovers, long before the doors of Paul McCartney’s L.I.P.A. became the hotbed of Norse influence and the beauty of a language enthused with British rhythms, a-ha were the go to band of the mid 1980s and early 1990s in which to get a sense of the sensitivity and craftsmanship that seemed so remote and yet only a short distance away.

A-ha, Cast In Steel. Album Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Slayer, Repentless. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It takes guts to continue when a lynch pin has been removed, when a much admired member of the band is no longer sadly part of the world and perhaps a reason for progressing is taken away; it takes magnetism, courage and style to keep the battle raging and strive for what is left still to achieve. In that alone Slayer, after losing the tremendous Jeff Hanneman, deserve credit for coming back with honest intent and grinding pulsating lyrical stance in their latest studio album Repentless.

Slayer, Repentless. Album Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Gren Bartley, Magnificent Creatures. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Quality is everything. It may be that as an artist you produce a song a day, place a poem before the world as it wakes up every morning, slave over an essay of 4000 words in which the core argument is lost, or even show black and white stills of images taken through the eyes of the camera lens every 24 hours, but quantity means nothing if the substance is found to be wanting, skeletal like and hungering for something to hang its chops upon.

Gren Bartley, Magnificent Creatures. Album Review. full post

(356 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Vanessa Murray, It’s About Time. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Vanessa Murray has been quietly biding her time on the Liverpool music scene, just out of the spot-lights glare, intriguing enough people and entertaining many more with her ability to support many a musician, notably the great Alan O’ Hare as part of the Only Child project or fellow aspiring musicians from L.I.P.A. It is a spotlight that has dazzled and impressed and now finally, a set of songs that have been carefully knitted together are to be set forth on the world.

Vanessa Murray, It’s About Time. E.P. Review. full post

(425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Matchstickmen, Imperfection. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A year can go past so very quickly, projects thought of in the death throes of a winter’s evening with a crackling fire warming the blood and the imagination stirring the pot of what the coming period ahead can be shaped like, can soon all turn to nought. The same wandering thoughts will forever turn on an ever shortening wheel; it is the imperfection that maps out our lives with frightening terminal abandon.

Matchstickmen, Imperfection. Single Review. full post

(327 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)