Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
The uncharted territory of being unsure of how an album will be received is always in the thoughts of a band as they, hopefully with great care, hand over the exchange of long, tiring hours, a few near nervous exhaustive breakdowns and spirited highs in which the world was a prospect of gleaming towers and expectant green fields. It is the moment in which an artist is beset with pride and optimism whilst battling fatigue and bouts of serial negativity.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is always a school of thought that suggests to take what is essentially a classic album, something that has been painstakingly upheld as a pinnacle of a musician’s life work and re-master it is somehow akin to robbing the memory of what went before, for both the artist and for the audience. It sits there like a re-make of a much loved film or a different interpretation of a favourite play in some people’s eyes and thoughts as having somehow desecrated the past.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Whatever helps the medicine go down is at times more beneficial than the cure it aids. Rest to help the weary, revolution to assist the neglected and mistreated, fire to cleanse the diseased and wanton and a purge to bring those who inflict tyrannical misery upon those they are meant to serve, all buff up the spirits of humanity but a defining way is to help the inner peace to all and in The Vagaband’s new album, Medicine for the Soul, the music is at the core of the recovery.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Rock is as Rock does, it is there to beef up a unique resolve that no other genre really has the right to try and do. Metal, of any type, goes too far, Folk relaxes the body and sharpens the mind to listen to the words on offer as well as the gentle swaying of a guitar or the pomp of a well placed brass instrument infect the mood. Other genres don’t have the pleasure of offering the enlightened Rock fan the Dirty Thrills they so desperately need, desire and deserve.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The very real tragedy that exposes the way humanity deals with a subject it doesn’t like is to sweep it under the carpet. They disown it, they move the subject along, they make excuses or pat it on the head, saying how terrible it all is, before moving swiftly on to talk about how much their home is now worth. For those in society who suffer the effects of mental illness, no matter how or to what degree, at times it does really feel as if the world is not just against you, it is actively campaigning to shut you up and move on. Nobody actually says anything constructive to get the ball rolling as a topic of conversation, not unless you count Forthaven and their brand new single The People of the World.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The sound of an honest beating heart is perhaps the greatest aphrodisiac around. The desire to hear the words and playful teasing notes of musicians who you understand just really like what they do; who just want to entertain, educate and inform the listener of a world beyond the beige and the creeping insidiousness of believing that television has all the answers, to listen with desire is enough to break and rebuild your heart several times over.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You can never have too much natural beauty in the world. The attraction of sitting back and being overawed by the sight of the sunlight bouncing of the droplets of water that drop in time to nature’s heartbeat off the sturdy Oak or the Mountain Ash and to the green grass below is matched in it vibrancy by the face of a young child when they finally realise the answer to a complex question.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The only way it can be described is as a shame. There are stronger words that can be used but it would go against the grain of what the music scene in Malta provides its people but doesn’t seem to be picked up across the watery border that separates the U.K. from continental Europe; whatever the word is, Malta has an excellent burgeoning pedigree of music and one of the finest is the astonishing Airport Impressions.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Behind the simplest name can stand a giant in waiting! For Leonie Evans, Lorenzo Prati, Leon Boyden and Dan Truen, Rae is a word of simplicity, of unforgettable naming, but it is a band that hides within its soul, a sound so complete, so wonderfully down-trodden that it hits below the belt time after time and catches the listener unaware of what is happening to them. Now with their brand new album, Awoken, ready to captivate and further enhance the feeling of sitting in a cigar filled room and seeing the smoke part just enough to allow vision to take in clarity, Rae step out from beyond the shadows and blast their music all over your ear-drums.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The smell of the Deep South, the history, both devastating and brutal and at times glorious and electrifying; you could be there sitting on a wooden porch listening to sound of crickets as they mock the alligators that wait patiently ready to snap, feeling the noxious aroma of sweat running down the back of a horse’s fetlock that stands idly by flicking its tail back and forth and the thoughts of a night in local bar with a crowd of people enjoying a tasty night of Blues. The Deep South has that all to offer…even it seems when it comes in the form of Denmark’s The Mojo Makers and the tremendous follow up to Wait Till the Morning, the thumping Devils Hands.