Category Archives: Music

Royal Southern Brotherhood, Live In Germany. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are expectations that have to be met when listening to a live album. The first is that the sound recreated on a stage, possibly many hundreds of miles from wherever you are fortunate enough to actually listen to the gig, has to be able to make the imagination run riot, to revel in the flow and thrust of the guitar, to feel the sweat run down your neck in anticipation and to envisage the person infront of you in the audience nervously sweating along with you. The taste of the gig has to be captured just right, else it is lost and abandoned like an errant Victorian child left at the Poor House.

Vamos, More Songs About Circles. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Vamos describe themselves as “Ruff and ready”, judging by the powerful three chord arrangements and embracing nature of the songs on their new album, More Songs About Circles, that speak more about life in the 21st century than any Government report and media friendly social workers with a supposed good hearts could ever put into words. Vamos is just very cool and a threesome that almost anybody could hold onto without the feeling of guilt thrust upon them.

Clutching At Straws, Come What May. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

All the world’s a stage and the sense of theatre can be found in almost every human interaction. For alternative Folk quartet, Clutching At Straws, their debut release of Come What May is a set of songs that glide almost effortlessly between the hard hitting conscious thought, of a different way of living and the hint of illusion in what apparently is important in modern day society. The sound of four men whose undisputed talent keeps them pace ahead of the rat race they are urging others to avoid.

Boston, Love, Life & Hope. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Boston never really typified the typical rock and that really is a good thing. The bands that were around them around the same time changed their ways and became less in your face and took on the approach that not every rock track needs to dogmatic, the same tired rhetoric filled with the only ambition being to be louder and brash than everybody else. Boston, or rather Tom Scholz bought a new and exciting feel, one more filled with the love of music and lyrics that play with love as an ideal.

Also Eden, Redacted. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There is nothing like an album to remind you of many truths that you may hold dear in your short life. When the subtle combination of music and lyrical splendour is able to shake the lethargy that had been creeping in to your existence, of perhaps even a first love, then you know that truth you had held onto for so long and with a vice like grip is absolutely right.

Nina Ferro, Into The Light. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is no doubting the honest sincerity and vocal intensity that Nina Ferro gives in her latest album Into the Light. The heartfelt plea, the authenticity that surrounds the vocals supplied by a selection of musicians who seem to have fallen completely under the spell of the quite remarkable vocals and play as if that spell will never be broken is more than enough to make sure that this album is regarded with high esteem amongst jazz, rhythm and blues enthusiasts.

Barry Briercliffe, Life On Repeat. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It is almost criminal, worthy of the full weight of the law being thrown against you, to let such an exciting musician such as Liverpool’s Barry Briercliffe to go so long without releasing an abundance of music that not only sounds terrific but also captures the rich goodness of the man and his guitar.

The Christians, Speed Of Life. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Heaven forbid the day when there is too much great music being produced that you find you cannot keep up with it all. Making time for an album should be savoured, it should want to be played at the right moment, not when fashion dictates. In that moment occasionally a beautiful album may slip through the net, not because you have forgotten but because the time never felt quite right in which to slip into the words of someone so talented a song writer.

Steeleye Span, Wintersmith. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There is no other way to write it down, a statement, that unless something the internet decides that enough is enough and crawls off to be superseded   by pure thought, should stand for all time, the combination between literature and Folk/Rock music in Steeleye Span’s Wintersmith is one of the albums of the year.

Glossom, E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Somewhere in the recesses of the mind, creativity can sparkle and take hold of a person. Once there it is near impossible to ever let it go back to being a dormant thought, unspoken and unloved. Even the most uncreative, unquestioning person in the world may find the small nagging voice speak softly but with purpose asking, begging to be set free, to fulfil something other than being an unthinking cog with no shred of inspiration. When the abundance of creativity is given full flow from a set of artists or musicians, the question should be, why might you want to put it away when you can create something rather marvellous?