The Comeback Trail. (2020). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, Zach Braff, Emile Hirsch, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Kate Katzman, Eddie Griffin, Chris Mullinax, Patrick Muldoon, Julie Lott, Blerim Destani, Vincent Spano, Paul Witten, Aighleann McKiernan, Melissa Greenspan, Joel Michaely, Jermaine Washington, Desiree Geraldine, Morse Bicknell, Danno Hanks.

Like the Blues, it seemed inevitable that the days of the Western movie being cinematic gold had long since departed in a wave of nostalgia and fond memories, and whilst the audience might miss the gun smoke, the sense of identifying with the lone pioneer of days long past, the constant signalling and portrayal of the Native American people as the casting villain, the rampant stereotyping, and negativity is something that is not missed at all.

The Comeback Trail. (2020). Film Review. full post

(562 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Time. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Sean Bean, Stephen Graham, James Nelson-Joyce, Hannah Walters, Dean Fagan, Jack McMullen, Paddy Rowan, Brian McCardie, Siobhan Finnernan, Cal MacAninch, Nadine Marshall, Kevin Harvey, David Calder, Sue Johnston, Franc Ashman, Nabil Elouahabi, Natalie Gavin, Aneurin Barnard, George Gjiggy Francis, Shaun Mason, Marie Critchley, Neal Caple, Bobby Schofield, Shahid Ahmed, Philip Barantini, Jonathan Harden, Terence Maynard, Jason Done, Lee Morris.

Time. Television Review. full post

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

Jonathon Long, Parables Of A Southern Man. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

If everything has been done before, then why do we as a species continue and persevere to attain a new high in the application of performance art and bringing stories to life in every form possible? The answer is arguably astonishingly simple, it only appears as though everything has been accomplished, for whilst humanity has the ability to imagine and to experience the world in different ways, there will always be a call to hear the life story of the northern woman, and the Parables of a Southern Man. 

Jonathon Long, Parables Of A Southern Man. Album Review. full post

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

Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Emma Nelson, Kristen Wiig, Patrick Sebes, Zoe Chao, David Paymer, Megan Mullally, Laurence Fishbourne, Steve Zahn, Patrick Jordan, Shaun Cameron Hall, Judy Greer, Maureen d’Armand, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Kate Burton.

There are those who will stifle a person’s creativity to the point that when it has been beaten out of them, they then complain that the artist has given up on life, that they should just admit that they have no value and become a drone, an automaton, serving only the capitalist gain of supply and demand in the consumable.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Film Review. full post

(547 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Joana Serrat, Hardcore From The Heart. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

To subvert the narrative is an act of rebellion to which many cannot find within themselves to understand. To know that the lie of advertising is aimed squarely at the emotional pull of guilt, of envy, of possession, is to understand that you cannot have it all because something must always give, that the ideal is an illusion, and the perfect is unobtainable.

Joana Serrat, Hardcore From The Heart. Album Review. full post

(385 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

John Jenkins, If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To apologise is hard, to forgive is challenging, and yet we are urged from early in life to see forgiveness as a way of promoting love for one’s self, to be able to move on from the perceived sleight, the moment of indiscretion, of the falling foul to all that makes us human; yet forgiving seems to be the hardest emotion to conquer, it would seem for many the easier option is make life intolerable for someone, to put them down, to find ways in which to destroy another human being just because they made a mistake.

John Jenkins, If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love. Album Review. full post

(557 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Mark Harrison, The Road To Liberty. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To live at liberty is perhaps the aim of us all, to live without authority or control, to observe freely, have the right of self-determination, and above all to have our stories told without prejudice or the judgement of intolerance rearing its ugly head as the world listens to a thousand souls yearning to be heard.

Mark Harrison, The Road To Liberty. Album Review. full post

(476 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

To Cut Through The Dirt.

To make something clean,

You

must understand

that something else

will have to become dirty,

 leave a mark, a smudge,

a smear

elsewhere…

My mind keeps whispering

clean and purge

the pain

in the leg, the sciatic nerve,

the fearsome ache in the neck

and spine, and groin, and eyes

and take a cloth to the arm

and leave my mark there…

over

and over

again,

till

To Cut Through The Dirt. full post

(88 words, estimated 21 secs reading time)

Matthew Robb, War Without Witness. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To be as uncompromising as you can be in a world that dictates subservience is an act of rebellion against a state that perceives a War Without Witness as power’s greatest achievement; it is a non-negotiable undertaking that we must fight power by always bearing witness, we must observe and report, never once being marginalised by those with agendas that seek the continued stance of servility.

Matthew Robb, War Without Witness. Album Review. full post

(404 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestra, The Fruitful Fells. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The fertile rich spirit which inside all who come into this world is rarely exercised to its full potential due to circumstance beyond their control, outside influences, like apples on a tree are subject to the varying changes in the weather, the soil, and the nutrition, are always eating away at the soul of the human and dictating just how they can reach out to the sun without allowing the worms of discontent to eat their way through the skin and through to its very core.

Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestra, The Fruitful Fells. Album Review. full post

(373 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)