Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Keep your head down, don’t look into the eyes of the beast that is sizing you up, that is snaring so close by you can feel the remains of the last meal it ate hitting your nostrils as though you were breathing in the sickly smell of carnage and death….do whatever you can to avoid the beast, for if you dare look it in the eye, you know you are next.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are those who will damn a person for understanding melancholy, accusing them of pandering to the inevitability of the morose and the miserable as though it is a choice and not the sight of an empathetic soul who recognises that to relish the beauty of a spring day you have to live through, the expression of a Hard Frost with the same objective appreciation and consideration.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
“There are two sides to this story…”
As with any production of art that claims to have the structure of what defines the artist’s best work, it is always one that is up for debate, one that can divide the public to the point where it damages the intention beyond repair.
To the story of Kris Drever, nothing of the kind should ever cross the thoughts of those who have taken the Scottish musician to their hearts, and the fan to come who will undoubtedly utilise the album as a steppingstone to discovery, to what can only be reverentially understood as unearthing beauty.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world is a very different place to yesterday, so imagine how dissimilar it must feel to February 2004 on the eve of The Stranglers making a dramatic statement as they returned after six years away from the studio with the incredibly direct and musically thrilling Norfolk Coast.
If yesterday was different, then imagine how tomorrow must look, and that is the point of being able to finally hear the band as they release the album on vinyl for the first time; for whilst times change and alter in out perception, a moment of elegance and class is timeless.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Some will never know the sheer thrill of walking through a venue’s door and being greeted by a fanfare of noise emanating from an excited audience already in the firm grip of the reveal that is about to take place on stage.
Some will feel the tension and the love but never truly understand the belief that entangles the heart and the soul as they watch with closed senses the spectacle and drive…and then there are those who will feel the weakness in their knees, the strength in their very being, and the beauty of the experience, close up and personal, the heady aroma of silk music and playful performance which is akin to a night of heavy drama in a theatre, and be forever captured by love.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Music should find a way to always surprise you, even if it by the margin of a raised eyebrow rather than the full overblown slap of connectivity that you hope for.
There is a lot to take in when confronted by the appearance of Jethro Tull’s latest album, RökFlöte, so much to unpack that whilst the idea should come as no surprise, the delivery is one of quietly drawn respect and admiration for pulling off the spectacle. Not only is it the shortest turn around in between albums, coming hot on the heels of 2022’s The Zealot Gene, for 40 years, its central device is that which keenly involves itself in ways that hark back to the band’s early concept albums to which they made, in their own surprised way, a huge impression on the Progressive genre.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
We are taught, quite rightly, as a child to not judge a book by its cover, but as we get older, more in tune to the universe, we cannot help in the field of art to gaze upon an album, a novel, a painting, and define it to our aesthetic enjoyment and be more likely to purchase the offering by the creative because of the way the cover stands out.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
If we are to endure and thrive as a species, we must look further than our own home as a means of survival, we must continue to stride onwards, to take that often secluded Journey Into Space and seek out companionship in the darkness, in the void of that which surrounds us.
To ignore the beauty of what is directly above, to not want to see what lays beyond the clouds and reflective blue, is to not feel the inspiration that the heavens create with a sense of majesty and mystery. That inspiration is always there, it is deeply embedded within us, and to take that step is to understand that we are captivated by endearing magnificence and the persistence of Time itself.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Loss is a great leveller, and a source of untold inspiration.
It may not feel like it at the time, but those personal bullet marks, the shrapnel that breaks our heart from the moment we learn of a life of a friend, a lover, a parent, has been taken by Time, give us a reason, should we wish to observe it, to honour the person that was. Be it a stranger, a fantasy figure, a respected artist, or any other soul that has in one way or another touched us, blessed our mind as well as our heart, we take that shrapnel and mould into a finer piece of reflection…no longer able to hurt us, it serves as an aide- memoire of the divine and the beautiful.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Almost forty years from the point of studio album introduction and the colossus and near unstoppable juggernaut that appeared in the hearts of Heavy and Thrash Metal fans, Metallica have encompassed almost every sphere at their disposal, and still the fans keep coming back, year after year, season after season.