Category Archives: Music

Larry Miller, Soldier Of The Line. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

History is made by those that write it. Whether for ill or for good, the written word is the perfect response to an event; even a hundred years after the aftermath and fallout that has been captured forever in a slice of Time. The writers, musicians and photographers somehow manage to evoke a message of rememberance that is perhaps unique amongst all of human responses to a critical event or personal emotion. Especially when seen through the eyes of the passionate and highly skilled.

James Frost, Nameless. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Some things remain Nameless, that is good as it injects an air of mystery and anonymous secrecy ….It is possibly down to many factors that Norwich is not known for many things in the general scheme of thought. Beyond perhaps one of Steve Coogan’s many comedic creations, the erstwhile Delia Smith, her beloved Norwich City Football Club and its stunning scenery, for many, unhappily and shamefully, the pre-eminent Norfolk city doesn’t really get that much coverage. Stuck as it is seemingly miles from anywhere, it truly is a capital of its own cut off country, only the half soaked land stopping it from being an island of incredible curiosity.

Lee Gallagher And The Hallelujah. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Somewhere between Bon Scott, Jim Morrison, the natural street like beauty of Steve Marriott and Jump’s John Dexter Jones lays the sweet heartbeat of Lee Gallagher and The Hallelujah.

It is one of the great pleasures in life that allows a person to hear the untwisted and unhindered emotion that a vocalist can bring to the delicately placed chord arrangements of the band that shroud the lyrical mystique to such a point where the words on offer to the listener take on air of mystery, a puzzle in which to immerse yourself into and gently work out what makes the charisma of the band tick so vibrantly.

Foo Fighters, Sonic Highways. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

There is putting a shift in and there is pushing it just that one step far before the first signs of a crumble start to appear. It can happen if time is not taken away from the studio and the filtering system of creativity is slightly blunted and becomes torn round the edges. The greats can get away with it however for perhaps a little while longer and whilst Sonic Highways, the new studio album from Foo Fighters, is for the most part a rock dream it is sadly not the full romp that has come to define the group for last decade and a half.

Ella The Bird, Glorified Demons. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is something unexpectedly delicious waking up to the sound of a good dawn chorus. Depending on the type of bird that sits and nests near your home, the early morning alarm call is perhaps, alongside the dawning of the sun, one of the very few real reasons to feel grateful to be alive at six in the morning. The songbird is much heralded for that incentive to crawl your eyes awake and allow the senses to take part in the natural action available.

The Jackobins, Ghosts. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For anybody over a certain age and who never fulfilled a particular inventive goal, to see a great band produce quality recordings and have the absolute conviction that strides alongside the energy to pull off the artistry is something that the previous generation could only perhaps feel the tiniest bit of jealousy for. Of course the jealousy, if it appears, never lasts long, for the only thing you can do, on either side of the divide that separates one age bracket from another is too wish them well and revel in the dedication that sweat out like the fire from a jet propelled rocket.

Windmill, One More Dance. Single review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

They may be a disappearing feature from the British countryside, however there is one particular Windmill that is going so strongly that its rotating blades of lingering vocals, moodily impressive guitars and drum pattern is sure to keep offering a twirl of spirited dynamism that is surely vital and causes a breeze of content to waft through the street of Liverpool.

Rhys Marsh, Sentiment. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Sentiment, the reaction to something that grabs the musical spirit and allows it grow over time into a positive and perhaps enlightening response that allows the human imagination to remember where they were when they first heard a particular song and the imagery that flashed before their eyes.

Iain Till, The Rise And The Fall. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When Iain Till found himself back in the performance arena, not quite gladiatorial provisioned but still armed with a sense of hope, proportion and wielding a deck full of songs, he perhaps would not have expected to reach the point where the release of the E.P. was to be considered the norm. The climb is a hardy beast full of pitfalls and the descent, well that is only too carefully planned by hubris to really ever keep an eye upon. Such is fortune’s way of preparing for The Rise and the Fall.

John Cee Stannard & Blue Horizon, Bus Depot Blues. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The light at the end of the tunnel is always best illuminated by missing the last bus home. The dejection and disappointment of having to walk the miles from the last chance saloon to the cold and unfriendly home is always punctuated by the chance to listen to whatever music infects your ears and take in the natural air that dances sickly in urban abundance as you walk the walk home and keeping the eyes firmly fixed on the way ahead; only your ears press ahead with learning something new.