Ellen Foley, Fighting Words. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Take a breath, and then another, be calm before you deliver those Fighting Words, for if you don’t mean them, if you are bluffing to the gallery and have no intention of following through with the warning, with upholding the principals to which you espouse, then those arguments and ready expressions of dispute won’t mean a thing.

Not every fighting stance has to be a confrontation, sometimes what comes across is the beauty of memory holding fast, holding back time, often it is the persuasion of the new release once again confirming the stature, the reputation, and the greatness of the individual.

Ellen Foley, Fighting Words. Album Review. full post

(467 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Andrew Howie, Pale White Branches. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Even the most resolute of performers who prefer to stand and create within their own company, must at some time feel the urge to collaborate. No person is an island, so the saying goes, and we learn, we find novel ideas, we have fun and enjoyment in the camaraderie of others, and in the end, even if we return to the studio alone, our thoughts will be of the time when those Pale White Branches on the tree of life showed the beauty of ornate arrangement and the flowers that come with teamwork and the cooperation of the seasons.

Andrew Howie, Pale White Branches. Album Review. full post

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

Kathryn Locke With Chodompa Music, LA. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Too often we are stifled by other people’s narrow parameters of what it means to learn, and whilst we may be proficient, competent, taught how to feel practised and trained, we are by no means creative, engaged or inspired to be original. Anyone, given time can learn the scales of Time, but it takes imagination and inventiveness to be an artist.

A teacher will write off a pupil for not sticking to the plan, but not realise that the gift of experimenting is what brings the tune together, by dismissing the outreach of the lesson the pupil instead becomes their own master, they are the ones who control the narrative.

Kathryn Locke With Chodompa Music, LA. Album Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Mike Zito, Resurrection. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The soundtrack of our life is a deeply individual and unique, we might have more than one play list, we could be listening to a whole variety of songs and special insightful tracks, we might even permit others to share in some of those moments where the guitar and the vocal capture the zeitgeist of personal interaction, but the final result is one that holds together what are as a person, as a distinctive, exceptional, irreplaceable human being.

Mike Zito, Resurrection. Album Review. full post

(387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Tito Jackson, Under Your Spell. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Wheels Keep Turning, and the world continues to revolve from fad to fad and from new sensation to unfamiliar experience, and yet every so often we fall under the influence of something new from a mature virtuoso, and we wonder how they managed to expertly get under our skin, into our minds, and hear ourselves say with pride as each track plays out, “We are Under Your Spell, and it feels great.”

Tito Jackson, Under Your Spell. Album Review. full post

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

Mordred, The Dark Parade. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is more to the Bay than you might remember, certainly more than what many new fans of the thrash era genre might believe ever existed, for where there is for many only The Black Album to delve into, it is in The Dark Parade that the music comes alive.

Mordred, The Dark Parade. Album Review. full post

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

Endless Idiot, Skull And Fork. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Brain salad surgery, the occupation of the elongated Progressive anthems, and one that is a gift to music that keeps giving. Yet for all the might of a once Progressive past that has been resurgent, a post classic period that has delivered a drive for the story to be clear and mystical, the last 18 months have proved once again that the world moves in cycles, and art reflects that state of human emotion to its fullest potential.

Endless Idiot, Skull And Fork. Album Review. full post

(434 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Nobody’s Girl, Nobody’s Girl. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Patience is a virtue that many are apt to decry in the modern era, so much so that they will dispense what they believe to be sage advice, “Everything moves so quick that you have to rush just to keep up”.

It never used to be this way, but then there never used to be the machine that was cranked up to make a treadmill seem like Sunday morning stroll through the favourite park and taking time to wipe the dirt from your shoes and in the passing company of the seasons and the woman with her own principles, ideas and drive, for she is Nobody’s Girl but her own, and her company is more than enough to be held in rapture.

Nobody’s Girl, Nobody’s Girl. Album Review. full post

(387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

I Tell You Now.

I send you flowers

and the odd

small gift

now and again,

but always in

the present.

I will tell you

I

love you

as a friend, as a former

lover,

now and always.

I do so

because

when the time comes,

I don’t want to be fighting

at the graveside

to compete for your attention…

Ian D. Hall 2021.

Permanent link to this post (63 words, estimated 15 secs reading time)

Bill & Ted Face The Music. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, William Sadler, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Hal Landon Jr., Beck Bennett, Kid Cudi, Amy Stoch, Holland Taylor, Jillian Bell, Dave Grohl, DazMann Still, Jeremiah Craft, Sharon Gee, Patty Anne Miller, George Carlin, Piotr Michael.

It is time to face the music, the unavoidable truth, that not everything in life that has a certain groundswell of opinion must be made, produced, or even given much consideration. That is the position that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter regrettably find themselves in as they return 25 years later to their alter egos of Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan in Bill & Ted Face The Music.

Bill & Ted Face The Music. Film Review. full post

(523 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)