Category Archives: Music

Spin Doctors, If The River Was Whiskey. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is something strangely comforting about revisiting a group’s past, even if it over 20 years later. The experience of listening to how songs sounded then to how you know they sound now live can be cathartic, a nod to the nostalgic in us all. It is even more humbling when you put place a new C.D. on, slip the headphones over the ears and wallow in something so majestically cool that you can only check the album over a few times just to make sure that the C.D. isn’t the wrong one, that what you are listening to really is the band a quarter of century later.

Spin Doctors, If The River Was Whiskey. Album Review. full post

(401 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Natalie McCool. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Four tracks in to her debut album, Natalie McCool asks in an intense and mesmerizing way, “Have you ever played with fire?” The answer may very possibly be yes, human nature is all about reaching for the unattainable and the desirable, no matter the cost to our soul and sanity. However Natalie McCool doesn’t just play with the fire, she supplies it, stokes the furnace till it gets so hot it positively blows and all the while she does it with every ounce of her being throughout this astonishingly superb album.

Natalie McCool. Album Review. full post

(345 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

Iron Maiden, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. 25th Anniversary Retrospective.

Can Progressive Rock and Heavy Metal coexist? It may be a question that vexes the purists of either genre, in modern day crossovers everything is nearly acceptable and certainly possible but in the late 1980s two bands from opposite sides of the Atlantic embarked on producing albums that embraced the concept and rich diversity that the amalgamation of two distinct entities could bring them. Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime would come out towards the end of April in 1988, the honour though of bringing out arguably the first Progressive Metal album would belong to Britain’s Iron Maiden with their most ambitious record at the time, the sensational Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

Iron Maiden, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. 25th Anniversary Retrospective. full post

(982 words, estimated 3:56 mins reading time)

Big Country, The Journey. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

They say all the best journeys are filled with good memories, the people we meet, the sights we see and the times we live through whilst going there. Some journeys are unexpected; they come around sweeping us off our feet and taking those caught in its wake along for what could be the most important quest of all. Big Country’s first album for the best part of 14 years is The Journey in name and spirit alike and where one chapter regretfully closed with the sad passing of the band’s former frontman and icon Stuart Adamson in 2001, another door opens wide as the group find belief in their conviction of providing excellent rock music once more and in The Journey they take the first tentative steps in reclaiming that ground again.

Big Country, The Journey. Album Review. full post

(383 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Joe Brown, The Ukulele Album. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

No matter the music you are into, the genres you find falling into line with during your life time, there is always a surprise or two waiting to catch you out along the way. Even the most ardent heavy metal fan can sometimes for no reason at all find themselves whistling along to a half remembered song from their pre-metal days. The songs of innocence sometimes outweigh the experience the listener builds up in their mental reserve and sometimes something creeps through, takes root and even makes you smile as you imagine the musicians having a blast recording the simple pleasurable notes.

Joe Brown, The Ukulele Album. Album Review. full post

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

O.M.D. English Electric. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

English Electric, the second new album by O.M.D. since their reformation starts with a warning that the anticipated future has been cancelled; possibly prophetic, a wild but reasonable claim and somehow justified by the pairing of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys in this demure and laidback recording.

In recent years some of their cohorts from the 1980s electronic music bonanza that swept through the decade like a broom demolishing the last vestiges of punk and trying to clear a suitable path against the resurgence of 80s Progressive and Heavy Rock/Metal, have once more released albums that have sounded fresh and interesting. Bands such as Blancmange and Human League have created a stir and O.M.D. has joined in once again.

O.M.D. English Electric. Album Review. full post

(385 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Stone Sour, House of Gold & Bones Part 2. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

If House Of Gold & Bones Part One by Stone Sour was spectacular then what does that make Part Two? It can be argued that there are so few decent sequels that the idea of adding more songs onto an already revered album could be a dangerous move, suggestions would be aired that why not bring the two albums together into one fleshed out being, however when something is as thrilling, as attention grabbing and the second part of House of Gold & Bones then a six month interlude to get the passion stoked and the absolute clarity of the music into the psyche, then what’s the rush? Part One was spectacular, Part Two is awesome.

Stone Sour, House of Gold & Bones Part 2. Album Review. full post

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

Paramore, Paramore. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

Times and band line ups may change but as long as the central component of Paramore remains then the group will continue to be an interesting listen, a smashing diversion from corporate pop and banality. That central piece that makes this, the band’s fourth album and the first one to be self-titled, is the endeavour and honesty in which the band performs and perhaps for the first time the ethos is stamped all the way through the recording.

Paramore, Paramore. Album Review. full post

(361 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

Spock’s Beard, Brief Nocturnal and Dreamless Sleep. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are exciting times ahead in store for Progressive Rock fans. In the U.K. the genre goes from strength to strength again after what seemed an interminable age of unfathomable corporate driven pop taking the hearts of the musically blessed for a ride and in the United States of America, where it was always a vogue and classic diversion away from the stadium rock acts, the root of the intimate and liberal way of going against the conservative mid-west structure and angry rap scene that burgeoned the big city life, it has become a movement of true artistry.

Spock’s Beard, Brief Nocturnal and Dreamless Sleep. Album Review. full post

(489 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Karelia, Golden Decadence. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It may not be a music genre that is keenly associated with France but occasionally a band aligned to the Metal brigade bursts through the Euro Tunnel and onto British soil in such a way that makes people sit up and take notice and wonder why the contribution of Karelia to the ever growing list of impressive acts from the continent is over taking the home grown talent from the natural home of the genre.

Karelia, Golden Decadence. Album Review. full post

(399 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)