Brian Bordello And Occult Character, Heart To Heart. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Dancing cheek to cheek maybe fun, singing from the same spread sheet can bring some closer together but a little Heart To Heart can soothe oceans of troubled waters and build bridges where none thought were possible to erect due to geographical differences and political contrasts. A discussion is not always about thrashing out anger and a Heart To Heart takes place when there is something to build, a pleasure of human emotion in which to keep sacred or the possibility of the new found admiration to which respect is earned and encouraged.

Brian Bordello And Occult Character, Heart To Heart. Album Review. full post

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

The Twilight Zone: Downtime. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Morena Baccarin, Colman Domingo, Serinda Swan, Tony Hale, Jordan Peele, Hamza Fouad, Javcie Dotin, Natalie Goyarzu, James Kot, Darren Dolynski, Andrew Lo, Jacob Machin, Aason Nadjiwan, M.J. Kokolis, Zac Siewert, Miriam Smith, Sandy Robson, Ingrid Libera.

We all have daydreamed about being somebody else, perhaps even have a specific image in our minds of how we would look, our standing, our gender, if we had the choice offered us, rather than the one we inherit thanks to our genes and the luck of the draw when it comes to conception.

The Twilight Zone: Downtime. Television Review. full post

(543 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

George Benson, Weekend In London. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Intimacy in 2020 has become a largely forgettable experience. Unless you have been fortunate to escape the storm that has knocked the world of its side and the arrogant hubris pulled from within, like the string that controls the string that drives the recorded voice on a child’s toy, the intimate has become one of gestures, of silent nods and reciprocated waving of hands, a relegated sense of emptiness has befallen us all and there is little sign of anything physical that may change that.

George Benson, Weekend In London. Album Review. full post

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

The Wretched. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: John-Paul Howard, Piper Curdo, Jamison Jones, Azie Tesfai, Zarah Mahler, Kevin Bigley, Gabriela Quezada Bloomgarden, Richard Ellis, Blane Crockarell, Judah Abner Paul, Ja’layah Washington, Amy Waller, Ross Kidder, Kasey Bell, Harry Burkey.

The difficulty is not in the application of writing a story about a witch, but in the deed of persuading the audience that the one at the heart of the story is not a cliche. One of the oldest protagonists in literature, the witch is greeted with either false doctrine or with a sense of damage in which the guarded and the wary find alluring to the point of intoxication.

The Wretched. Film Review. full post

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

Ryk Mead, In A Lockdown. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is only at the end that we can take stock of what we have experienced and learned to understand just how at times we are prepared to be inward looking, perhaps selfish, to survive, that it comes as a shock to see how others managed themselves in times of adversity, in times when honour is called upon and often neglected.

Ryk Mead, In A Lockdown. Single Review. full post

(338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

3022. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Omar Epps, Kate Walsh, Angus Macfadyen, Jorja Fox, Miranda Cosgrove, Enver Giokai, Haaz Sleiman, Emma Hebda, Audrey Loove, Faith Alexis Oliver, Sara Tomko.

When the world dies screaming, when it cracks open like an egg and all that remains is dust and fragments of what was once our home, only then shall we truly know ourselves. If we witness this momentous occasion from the depths of space, only then shall we realise that the Universe is a place where we have no right to be.

3022. Film Review. full post

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

The Retraining Of Jo The Banker (A Short Alternative History).

He was sure that the Government would support him,

He expected no less

as a taxpayer, albeit one

who paid with other’s cash

when they weren’t paying attention.

But how surprised was our Jo

when the Westminster circus

told him that his job

was no longer viable,

he would have to retrain,

to change direction.

As he felt the three-day growth

of hair on his cheeks, and the curry

he had with the boys

from a rival firm,

The Retraining Of Jo The Banker (A Short Alternative History). full post

(515 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Roger Waters, Us And Them. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Us And Them, strangely even more prophetic in dark, unyielding times, than perhaps at any moment in the last fifty years; for the world hangs in the balance, a plaything for a few conceited, evil souls who are happy to destroy peace, place every citizen in poverty, and become strangers to each other if it means their billions lay undisturbed, that the camera adores them and they can spout their hateful rhetoric and dogma to the believers and the flagellating disciples to whom no wrong can be seen in their eyes.

Roger Waters, Us And Them. Album Review. full post

(580 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

I Hate Suzie. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Billie Piper, Leila Farzad, Daniel Ings, Matthew Jordan-Caws, Nathaniel Martello-White, Emma Smithin, Molly Jackson-Shaw, Chelsea Edge, Dexter Fletcher, Amanda Abbington, Ryan Gage, Phil Daniels, Lorraine Ashbourne.

Regardless of whether you are considered a celebrity or someone who just happens to be chosen at random to be humiliated, the sense of power that a malevolent hacker can have over your most intimate moments in life is enough to make you consider removing yourself from the modern day rack which is the internet, completely.

I Hate Suzie. Television Review. full post

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

Agatha And The Midnight Murders. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Helen Baxendale, Gina Bramhill, Elizabeth Tan, Alistair Petrie, Vanessa Grasse, Blake Harrison, Jodie McNee, Daniel Caltagirone, Morgan Watkins, Jacqueline Boatswain, Scott Chambers, Thomas Chaanhing,

If you can’t make the programmes or films you want, then there is always a way to produce something close, a piece of art that fills the same shaped gap and which will always have the fan clamouring to add to their memory, giving them just that little extra taste of their favourite character or person; even if the situation is versed in the realm of the imaginative alternative history.

Agatha And The Midnight Murders. Television Review. full post

(502 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)