Ocean Hills, Santa Monica. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Experience counts, yes you can create a masterpiece without having lived, loved and seized the day by the appropriate metaphor, but the one thing such as classic will always arguably be short of one important factor, the familiarity of existence and having shook hands with demons and angels alike.

Ocean Hills’ Santa Monica is a case in point of how experience can bring out the best in art, offering the listener a snapshot of your life but infusing a belief of fluency to which they were not originally part of; it is the immersive nature of Zoli Teglas and the musicians around him that make this album not only sing a song of awareness, but of know-how, of knowledge and wisdom.

Ocean Hills, Santa Monica. Album Review. full post

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

The Rhythm Section. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Blake Lively, Jude Law, Raza Jaffrey, Tawfeek Barhom, Sterling K. Brown, Richard Brake, Matilda Ziegler, Elly Curtis, David Duggan, Bill O’Connell, Ivana Basic, Irma Mali, Geoff Bell, Tawfeek Barhom, Jack McEvoy, Nasser Memarzia, Amira Ghazalla.

Cinema loves a good tale of revenge, a lost soul with a cause that is just, who has lost all they had, but who came back fighting with a purpose to right the wrongs bestowed upon them by thieves, murderers and even governments; cinema loves a good tale of vengeance, also it has a lot to say about those films that want to live in that world but barely live up to the highs that the medium has offered audiences throughout the last hundred years.

The Rhythm Section. Film Review. full post

(636 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

The Twilight Zone: Try, Try. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Topher Grace, Kylie Bunbury, Jordan Peele, Logan McInnes, Bruno Rudolf, Kelly Ann Woods, Kam Kozak, Jina Anika, Mark Chavez, Marc Williams, Britney Mocca, Leo Chiang.

There is surely no denying that Groundhog Day is one of the classic American comedies of the last 40 years, not only does it see Bill Murray at his best, a tall feat when you consider just how influential he has been throughout his entire career, but the premise of the film is charming, beguiling and one that captures the idea of persistence and change right down to its very core.

The Twilight Zone: Try, Try. Television Review. full post

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

The Undoing. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Noah Jupe, Donald Sutherland, Edgar Ramirez, Lily Rabe, Matilda De Angelis, Edan Alexander, Michael Devine, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Jeremy Shamos, Madeline Faye Santoriello, Irma-Estel LaGuerre, Noma Dumezweni, Billy Lake, Douglas Hodge, Fala Chen, Tarik Davis, Maria Dizzia, Vedette Lim, Janet Moloney, Jason Kravits, Matt McGrath.

If the year has taught television audiences anything it that the court room drama, if handled and written with care and objectivity, can still grip the viewer and have them on the edge of the seat; and if you can get past the search for the face of the suspect and concentrate on the why rather than the who, then the investment will have been worth it.

The Undoing. Television Review. full post

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

Sinead McConville & D Cullen, Christmas Ain’t The Same (Miles and Miles Away). Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There is no escaping the fact that this year will go down in history as one of the most exhausting, perhaps demanding years of anyone’s life, certainly as a society in the Western world which aside from brief or continued acts of terrorism, aside from natural disasters, have arguably been untouched by any disturbance to the Christmas celebration since World War Two.

Even then we were perhaps fortunate, and have been certainly ever since, that Christmas, that time of year where the misty eyed traditionalist and the loved up optimist shake hands and regale the world with stories and emotion, whilst all around the sound of tills have rang out merrily and in tune to the consumerist drive.

Sinead McConville & D Cullen, Christmas Ain’t The Same (Miles and Miles Away). Single Review. full post

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

Shy Girl, Alias. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

The appearance and aroma of toxicity is in all of us, across the gender divide, across political division, through class, culture and philosophy, even if we preach and display idealism, compassion, empathy, in some small way we are capable of being the most toxic person in a room at one time or another.

Such is the depth of our personality, the understanding that we are more than just a single line joke delivered by the eternal jester, that we are complex and complicated, that we are capable of beautiful highs, and intolerable lows, and that in someone else’s story, we are the villain given many names, “There is such and such, Alias The Devil“.

Shy Girl, Alias. E.P. Review. full post

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

Beth Lee, Waiting On You Tonight. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We are worth so much more than being the idle thought of those that caused our hearts to break, after all is said and done, the only person that can truly destroy us emotionally, is ourselves.

Stepping away from The Breakups for a while as she explores her current surroundings and delves further into her own solo story, Beth Lee opens up her soul to a new kind of love, the selfless self-love to which we must all embrace if we are being to true to ourselves, the solitude of confinement in which we learn the ultimate truth of our existence and how it drives us to avoid falling into the lap of heartbreak again.

Beth Lee, Waiting On You Tonight. Album Review. full post

(367 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Eyes Of Tomorrow, Settle For More. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Having an attitude is not only essential but indispensable to having your story, your life, being expressed in the right way. There is no relief to be found in being meek even if you inherit the world and the wind, only the damage that timidity and mild voice can bring; nobody should reconcile for less, no one should settle for less than they are worth, Settle For More, demand that your voice be heard at all times.

Eyes Of Tomorrow, Settle For More. Album Review. full post

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

Tin Star: Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tim Roth, Genevieve O’Reilly, Abigail Lawrie, Christina Hendricks, Sarah Podemski, John Lynch, Jenessa Grant, Anamaria Marinca, Brendan Sunderland, Oliver Coopersmith, Ian Puleston-Davies, Ryan Kennedy, Lynda Boyd, Michelle Thrush, Matt Willis.

There was always, and will always be, a sizeable section of society that looks at a drama series, whether it is in the realm of the soap opera, quick turn- around scripts and Hollywood smiles and devil may care attitude, or in the arguably more serious vane to which the whole household gives there time to across a select number of episodes, and to which the conversation will inevitably turn, of just how much can actually happen to one person, that to a cross section of society an adventure is a one off, that the protagonist, the anti-hero, surely cannot have that type of complicated life.

Tin Star: Series Two. Television Review. full post

(607 words, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

Death Dealer, Conquered Lands. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A conquered land is one that has been taken by force, the image of desolation, of pillage, fires burning, its people scattered, perhaps laid waste, uncertain if their way of life will ever return, held hostage by the loss and despair and the knowledge that their lives will never be the same again.

Death Dealer, Conquered Lands. Album Review. full post

(472 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)