The Outlaws. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Rhianne Barreto, Gambia Cole, Christopher Walken, Eleanor Tomlinson, Darren Boyd, Clare Perkins, Charles Babalola, Stephen Merchant, Isla Gie, Jessica Gunning, Grace Calder, James Nelson-Joyce, Guillermo Bedward, Aiyana Goodfellow, Ian McElhinney, Gyuri Sarossy, Dolly Wells, Marcus Fraser, Tom Hanson, Kojo Kamara, Sam Troughton, Inez Solomon, Evelyn Temple, Claes Bang, Hannah Brownlie, Josh Alexander, Leigh Williams, Michael Cochrane, Richard E. Grant.

The Outlaws. Television Review. full post

(586 words, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Simu Liu, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Awkwafina, Ben Kingsley, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, Michelle Yeoh, Wah Yeun, Florian Munteanu, Andy Le, Paul W. He, Jayden Zhang, Elodie Fong, Arnold Sun, Stephanie Hsu, Tsai Chin, Jodi Long, Dallas Liu, Ronny Chieng, Stella Ye, Fernando Chien, Michael-Anthony Taylor, Zach Cherry, Raymond Ma, Benedict Wong, Jade Xu, Shelley Xu, Alistair Bates, Dee Bradley Baker, Brie Larson, Tim Roth, Mark Ruffalo.

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Film Review. full post

(626 words, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

Beans On Toast, Survival Of The Friendliest. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Darwin received a fair amount of disgruntlement for his startling discoveries and observations when he undertook his voyage upon H.M.S. Beagle and pondered the meaning of life across time and found that survival depended on being the most adaptable.

Even long after his death he is misquoted, sometimes by the oppressor and the bully, often by the religiously inclined; if only he had written and presented a paper titled Survival Of The Friendliest, then perhaps much of the toxic humanity we have collectively endured since the day the great man first noticed the differences in the finches as they flew in circles around The Galapagos Islands, might well have been avoided.

Beans On Toast, Survival Of The Friendliest. Album Review. full post

(508 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Y: The Last Man. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ben Schnetzer, Ashley Romans, Olivia Thirlby, Diane Lane, Elliot Fletcher, Amber Tamblyn, Juliana Canfield, Diana Bang, Missi Pyle, Jess Salgueiro, Yanna McIntosh, Jennifer Wigmore, Paul Gross, Kristen Gutoskie.

Nature abhors a vacuum, remove a species, destroy a civilisation from existence, and what you are left with is a power struggle, a false manipulation of authority and dominance that requires feeding, and can turn on what remains on itself; the sense of the diminishing resonance that comes with extinction.

Y: The Last Man. Television Review. full post

(537 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Ed Brayshaw, Random Repeat. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Ed Brayshaw is as individual as they come, the sense of the distinct and the specific framing the abundance of ideas and musical outpourings is seemingly personal to him, and despite the immensity of his contribution to others which grace the same playing field, the personality of being is one of character, of a persona who knows exactly the role he is performing and the encompassing truth to which the song never strays.

Following on from the superb Fire Without Water, Ed Brayshaw returns with that deep courage filled persona and musical riches in an album of muscle, command, and imperative belief.

Ed Brayshaw, Random Repeat. Album Review. full post

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

Billy Joel, The Vinyl Collection: Volume One. Box Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Rarely, if ever, do we get the chance to be in someone’s life for the entirety of their existence, the best we can often realise is that we are there for the moments that matter, the good, the bad, and possibly the indifferent when summer days are listless and unmoving.

Billy Joel, The Vinyl Collection: Volume One. Box Set Review. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Jethro Tull, Benefit. 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

For the Benefit of those who believe that Jethro Tull starts at Aqualung and ends around the time when the golden age of Progressive Rock gave way in time to the neo-Progressive successor, Steven Wilson, who himself is no stranger to the delight and sorcery of the genre has remixed, and indeed given new life to perhaps one of Jethro Tull’s least mentioned, and often least enjoyed in certain circles albums, the 1970 classic Benefit.

Jethro Tull, Benefit. 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition. Album Review. full post

(497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Miss Scarlett And The Duke. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Kate Phillips, Stuart Martin, Cathy Belton, Ansu Kabia, Danny Midwinter, Evan McCabe, Richard Evans, Nick Dunning, Simon Ludders, Amy McCallister, Andrew Gower, Kevin Doyle.

There are few places in time that make for the convenience of the private detective to ply their trade, and the later Victorian period with its pulse set firmly on the expansion of the Industrial Revolution, the sense of optimism shrouding the creeping decay, the rust of human life, as they fall foul to mechanisation, is up there with the very best of them.

Miss Scarlett And The Duke. Television Review. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Dalgliesh: A Shroud For A Nightingale. Television Review. (2021).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Bertie Carvel, Jeremy Irvine, Helen Aluko, Alice Nokes, Eliot Salt, Robin Krostoffy, Alex Krostoffy, Beccy Henderson, Fenella Woolgar, Amanda Root, Siobhan Cullen, Richard Dillane, Avin Shah, Natasha Little, Syd Ralph, Lily Newmark.

We have come to think of the past as a rusting, decaying, and in many cases unnecessary distraction from the objectives of today, and the hope for the future that we all wish to witness, the new sense of puritanism that has come replete with cancel culture, of objectifying key moments and simply erasing them as if they didn’t happen, rather than confronting them and placing them in their appropriate modern day thought; that is the past not only rusting, but being corrupted in the same way that the workers of the Ministry of Truth changed details daily under the terrifying eye of Big Brother.

Dalgliesh: A Shroud For A Nightingale. Television Review. (2021). full post

(614 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Niko, Electric Union. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

What some may believe to be an insult of description of the ‘synthetic’ sound, is in fact an observation of how far we have come in terms of creating a comprehensive and rigorous entity to which anything is possible. Music benefits from its embracement of the once thought abstract, musicians and writers find the value of intrigue and absorbing curiosity, and for the listener, this Electric Union is one where the scheme of stimulus galvanises all the seams together and creates a whole new universe in which to discover.

Niko, Electric Union. Album Review. full post

(414 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)