Originally published by L.S. Media. July 12th 2012. .
L.S. Media Rating ****
Sometimes you miss the boat on the start of a musician’s career and you kick yourself for it. Newton Faulkner is one such case in point. With two albums under his belt already, Newton Faulkner is already considered a rare talent. His third album, Write It On Your Skin, confirms the platitudes and detailed examination of his song writing style.
Broken English. Photograph By Ian D. Hall
Originally published by L.S. Media. July 14th 2012.
L.S. Media Rating ****
There is something particularly engaging about the band Broken English. It may be the that four of the group have roots that spread far beyond these shores, it might be that for all the bluster and appeal of a Saturday night out in town, sometimes you catch a little gem of a band that makes you smile for no reason or it may just be that they are a very good band to catch live.
The High Violet. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Originally published by L.S. Media. July 14th 2012.
L.S. Media Rating ***
The o2 Academy, Liverpool has been blessed in the last couple of weeks with some very good support bands. Sometimes these bands are overlooked as the entrée before the main filling, the bread you fill up on before the well served steak is presented to an awaiting audience. In High Violet they really should be considered much more than an appetiser, they have the real chance of making some very big waves in the years ahead of them.
Originally published on L.S. Media. July 18th 2012.
L.S. Media Rating ***
There is a moment on Serj Tankian’s new release, Harakiri, where you think, finally this is what I know he was trying to get across in the first few songs, and then just as fleetingly the moment is lost. Somewhere in between the tracks on the album it becomes sort of messy combination, a mish-mash of towering ideas that obviously started out with such creative, noble and honest intentions but may leave some fans feeling a little cold, not just with overwhelming subject matter but with the great man himself.
Originally published in L.S. Media. July 18th 2012
L.S. Media Rating ****
Susanna Hoffs, lead singer of The Bangles, comes back to recording music with the exceptional new album Someday.
There has always been something very West-Coast America about Ms. Hoffs’ music, even the very heavily Liverpool vibe that rolls through some of some of the early Bangles tunes has a tremendous 60’s Californian hippy vibe that is not only engaging but puts the listener at ease and makes them think of less hectic times.
Originally published in L.S.Media. July 21st 2012
L.S. Media Rating *****
The first time you hear Treehouse by Ned Evett you might wonder what makes his album so special. If you have to ask that then it’s time to give up listening to music and perhaps find yourself a safer more mundane hobby such as collecting stamps.
For anyone growing up in the 1980’s and seeing the cover of the Dire Straits album, Brothers In Arms, one of the most vivid and iconic images is that of a steel cased guitar that adorns the sleeve. It’s stunning and beautiful. Keep that image, magnify it by about a hundred and you are close to what Ned Evett has managed to achieve on Treehouse.
Originally published on L.S. Media. July 23rd 2012.
Inside View, Let Go. Album Review.
There is something rather deliciously and creatively cool about Inside View’s full debut album Let Go. After a few years of releasing the obligatory e.p’s it was perhaps time that the band consisting of Anthony O’Brien on vocals and guitar, Danny Heaton on guitar and vocals, Johnny Waring on bass and vocals and Sean Murphy on drums, released an album to an awaiting world and the result is a record of some magnificence and beauty.
L.S. Media Rating **And so the story begins…
As 21st birthdays go, this isn’t a bad reflection of one of the seminal and iconic bands of the 1990’s. These days Blur can do no wrong, they are ingrained and established in the British psyche, they have grown up with the generation they inspired and where once they typified a whole sub genre of music, these days they can be considered cool enough to be, if not the elder statesmen of the British music industry then the bizarre uncle who once got down with the teenagers and who now can still be looked upon with much fondness.
Originally Published on L.S. Media. 30th July 2012.
L.S. Media Rating ***
If you are going to redefine yourself, whether as a human being or even that special breed that is at best casually derived and described as artistic and often much worse, then its best to do it before audiences put you in the box marked interesting in small doses but ultimately no future.
Originally Published on L.S. Media. 30th July 2012.
L.S. Media Rating ****
Parklife was Blur’s third studio album and from the moment the listener heard the now classic beginning, they realised that not only was it a winner, a piece of recoding history given to the fans by the musical equivalent of Prometheus, but that it also set the band finally on the road to being a class act. What nobody foresaw, no-one at all, was how it would go on to define a decade and a generation aching the get away from the pop driven banality of the last couple of years and endless soap opera stars turned singers.