Bryan Adams: Roll With The Punches. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is always a kind of unbalance to the world when you hear a bunch of songs for the first time at a gig several months before the album that they appear on is unleashed on to the conscious of the listener. It does always feel as though it is the wrong way round, a state of confusion that perhaps prepares you for the peace of a listen at home already acquainted with the dynamic, but which robs the actuality of sentiment and core memories later down the line as expressed in a group setting designed to inflame the senses and have the listener roll with every emotional punch available.

Bryan Adams: Roll With The Punches. Album Review. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Helloween: Giants & Monsters. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Giants & Monsters sees the return of one the most influential Heavy Metal bands to the front of the genre’s mass appeal, and in a year when the German group celebrate 40 years since they released their eponymous debut E.P. and later on that same year the towering Walls Of Jericho, Helloween, once again guided by the three originals of the band, Michael Weikath, Kai Hansen, and Markus Grosskopf, have placed before the masses a sense of continual cool as their new album creates certainty and an air of devilish mayhem to enjoy.

Helloween: Giants & Monsters. Album Review. full post

(451 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

V UK: Occupation. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Annabel Baldwin, Jon Culshaw, Jack Myers, Hannah Brown, Alan Cox, Abigail Cruttenden, Mark Elstob, Louise Faulkner, Jason Forbes, Harriet Kershaw, Tom Kiteley, George Naylor, Andrew James Spooner, Sam Stafford.

When the American Science Fiction series Vwas aired on British television, it caused a sensation for those with the foresight to sit down and take in the spectacle and dynamic of a storyline that is one of the finest examples of alien invasion to ever be part of television history.

V UK: Occupation. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

(490 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Snare. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Alex Austin, Hannah Brown, Camille Coduri.

The reunion many have actively awaited for, for one of the shortest runs that a companion had with a single Doctor that certainly deserved more than a single season, more than just 13 episodes, and yet from the revival episode of Rose through to The Parting Of The Waves, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper captivated a nation of fans with their dynamic and emotional resonance as they fought Autons, The Gelth, members of family Slitheen, and Nanogenes that rewrite human physiology, and all the while, and despite the darkness of one of the biggest surprise endings to a series ever concocted, they faced the universe with humour and a friendship that arguably hadn’t been seen on screen in the Who Universe since Jon Pertwee’s incarnation of the mad man from Gallifrey and the marvellous Sarah Jane Smith.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Snare. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

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

FM: Brotherhood. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Consistency, such a resounding achievement in any field, let alone artistic, is to be as lauded as that which comes from those who see the application of success as only one of creative ups and downs and continual disruption that leads to an output of extremes.

The variation of extreme might have some drooling with anticipation, but for the multitude the sheer ability of reliable dependability is overwhelmingly fierce, it shows a narrative of textured nuance that has been carefully thought out, fleshed and ironed with devotion, and in the solid and endearing rock group, FM’s latest album, Brotherhood, is a lesson in steadfast critically positive drive and ambition, strengthened by the infectious groove of the songs that pump blood and blow the mind.

FM: Brotherhood. Album Review. full post

(344 words, 1 image, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

H. Jack Williams: Something About Hope. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

When a poet speaks the whole world should tremble, people should listen with full attention and be silent, for a poet, unlike a politician of any persuasion or coloured rosette, has nothing to lose by using their voice to speak out or up for that which vexes society, there is no promise or delusion, only frank words designed to highlight and comfort, to place anger or shoulder the lie, and the spoken word of the poet should offer nothing but a truth.

H. Jack Williams: Something About Hope. Album Review. full post

(370 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Barry Briercliffe: The Freedom Of Our Childhood Hearts. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

By the time we understand, it becomes too late to enjoy what should be one of carefree learning and play, filled with unconditional love and surrounded by those who only want the best for us; never again to we feel The Freedom Of Our Childhood Hearts, the best we can do is too make sure those we bring into the world are blessed with such fortune.

Barry Briercliffe: The Freedom Of Our Childhood Hearts. Album Review. full post

(358 words, 1 image, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Bookish. Series 1. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Polly Walker, Connor Finch, Elliot Levey, Buket Kömür, Blake Harrison, Tim McInnerny, Paul McGann, Joely Richardson, Daniel Mays, Rosie Cavaliero, Gerard Horan, Anton Antoniadis, Tom Forbes, Amanda Drew, Ella Bruccoleri, Angeliki Papoulia, Jonas Nay, Harry Taurasi, Mark Umbers, Hannah Snow, Amanda Payne, Mark Winstanley, Chris Brooker, Charlie Cattrall, Michael Workeye, Elizabeth Berrington, Amanda Payne, Mariken van Lammeren, Mark Benton,  Loveday Smith, Luke Norris, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Shaniqua Okwok, Rina Krasniqi, Isabelle Connolly.

Bookish. Series 1. Television Drama Review. full post

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

The Who: Live At The Oval – 1971. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

The chances of a new studio album from The Who are to say the least minute, an almost impossibility, that whilst would be welcomed by the fans, would surely be argued would go against the grain of declaring that the latest tour is certainly the final time we would see them live; a studio album would deflect that certainty, it would be an expectation of bank balance taking priority over ethics and high music morals.

The Who: Live At The Oval – 1971. Album Review. full post

(505 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Amit Dattani: Wrong Kind Of One. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

We often, in a modern setting, proclaim heroism when there is no such reality to our statement, we overlook the fight that a person may have had, the sense of sacrifice, the damage that comes with the continual punishment of grinding away at the surface of the soul; instead placing our congratulations at the feet of those whose success comes from a random act of serendipity and not pain or loss on a personal level.

Amit Dattani: Wrong Kind Of One. Album Review. full post

(435 words, 1 image, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)