Category Archives: Music

Matt Mitchell & The Coldhearts: Mission. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Not everybody wants to get in the ring and spar, not all find the smell of animalistic sweat and the sound of the bell, the swagger of the crowd, and the hype of gloves clashing to their taste, but if that’s the Mission, along with anything else that correctively feels as though you have been smacked with sensible thought then that is the one you must accept, and with sharp instinct and fierce gaze, so Matt Mitchell & The Coldhearts release their own Mission statement on the crowds, those close up and personal, those at the back of the arena; all are given the fight and performance expected of seasoned pros.

Ivy Gold: Live At The Jovel. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Picture the setting, it has to special, alluring, verging on the perfect, historic… hopefully, tantalising with its reverb, dripping in the expectation of its audience; you can record a performance anywhere and sell it to the fans, but its takes the right combination of all its parts to make it one that is distinctive, different, as rock solid as evidence as laid before the judges of musical flavour as can possibly be obtained by fair means or subversion to make it sound creatively cool and pulsating with life unexpected.

Gemma Rogers: No Place Like Home. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Individuality and the eccentric go hand in hand, and where some will turn their nose up at such actions of originality, the truth is the strange, the unpredictable, and the idiosyncratic will always find favourable smiles because they are true to human nature, they have refused to give in to the ordinary and average conceits, and they prove that there is No Place Like Home for spreading their own gospel on life, and that taking to the streets is a fate they are willing to expand upon.

Laura Evans: State Of Mind. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The belief in the concept of the overnight success is one that does disservice to the hard work going on behind the scenes of every soul, every mind, in every corner of the world. It is the buy in to wish fulfilment, the stuff of dreams that are impossible to get on board with because it focuses on the aftermath and not the genuine passion that is the drive to life.

Amy Goddard: Rise. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Whatever is thrown at you by life, by those who would see you suffer because of their own insecurities, Rise above it all, and keep being inspired to produce your own elegant version of art…advice perhaps that is not given enough space in our lives, not given freely to us unless we come across the right teacher, the one who is invested in our wellbeing, who will mentally challenge us but urge us to be accepting that out there are people who will do us wrong, not because of who we are, but because they dislike themselves to the point of suffering.

Brooks Williams & Aaron Catlow: Ready For The Times. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Are You Ready For The Times? No, not the ones we have dug in against for what seems more than a lifetime, the one in which has divided opinion, set friend against friend, family member against loved ones, and created a disparity of feeling that has threatened to overspill in other sectors of life; no the times we need to be prepared for are the ones in which the emotions are guided by home truths and the deep persuasions of understanding which more than suggest that we can do better, they demand that our repertoire be expanded, that we do more than just have one arrow in our quiver to fire.

Mean Mary: Portrait Of A Woman (Part 1). Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The mother of invention is more than just necessity, it is foresight, it is the demand of the mind to explore, to pursue, to go beyond the private individual and to open up the experience of the many voices that reside, often unheard, in our minds.

Grieving Sea: Donewiz. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The lure of darkness is not only for those who feel the pain of eternal light blinding them, it is also for those who see the beauty in the shade afforded to them, the brisk walk and the occasional saunter through worlds that are dimmed by nightfall, but which are the highlight of glorious imagination allowed, urged, to run wild.

Regina Spektor: Home, Before And After. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Home is the place where when you have nowhere else to turn, they take you in.

We have become perhaps to rich in our definition of home in the last decade, keen as we are to acknowledge the various parts that make up our life, the home here, the home town, the birthplace, the motherland, the native soil, and never forgetting the area in which we feel as though we should call home, when in truth home is only ever the place where you are happiest, where you feel safe, where the abundance of our memories are made, where hopefully if life has been fair, our loved ones are waiting for us at the end of time.

The Alarm: Ω. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

An end of times, for a country that is intrinsically, fundamentally divided cannot hope to continue; like a marriage that has hit the wreckage of toxic behaviour, the worst aspects of a country’s outward appearance overshadow any good that can possibly be gleaned, or indeed salvaged, from.