Endeavour: Raga. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Anton Lesser, James Bradshaw, Sean Rigby, Abigail Thaw, Caroline O’ Neill, Carol Royle, Sia Alipour, William Allam, Pal Aron, Emma Cunniffe, Ryan Gage, Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Merrells, Hiftu Quasem, Rebecca Saire, Madhav Sharma, Deva Wareing, Shane Zaza, Flora London, Harki Bhambra, Buom Tihngang, Graeme Stevely, Ted Robins, Neil Roberts, Raj Awasti.

To understand a country in its current outlook, you have to delve into its past, the moment where perhaps today’s older living generation have set the tone and in which the rest have fallen into line with or which are actively trying to undermine, to create a finer version, or comprehend the fine line that separates the two, between tradition and revolution.

Endeavour: Raga. Television Review. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

The Pale Horse. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Rufus Sewell, Sean Pertwee, Kaya Scodelario, Bertie Carvel, Georgina Campbell, Madeleine Bowyer, Poppy Gilbert, Claire Skinner, Rita Tushingham, James Fleet, Kathy Kiera Clarke, Sheila Atim, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Ellen Robertson, Sarah Woodward, Kim Chapman, Nicky Goldie, Christopher Bianchi, Elliot Francis, Sarah Jane, Jon Ramsbottom, Mark Schneider.

The supernatural plays no part in the pursuit of murder, or so the purists might have you believe, for in solving a mystery nothing can be forsaken in the reveal of the face of evil.

The Pale Horse. Television Review. full post

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

We Have Always Lived In The Castle. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, Sebastian Stan, Crispin Glover, Paula Malcomson, Peter Coonan, Ian Toner, Joanne Crawford, Anna Nugent, Peter O’Meara, Luan James-Geary, Cormac Melia, Liz O’ Sullivan, Bosco Hogan, Stephen Hogan, Maria Doyle Kennedy.

A film that comes with no fanfare and preconceptions is almost always one that will have you fixated throughout, not because of its reliance on studio CGI or on the box office name that lights up the screen, but because of its simple and yet highly effective story-telling, the interest in the range of characters, and a small truth that must always be held in such circumstances, that life, for all its possibilities, is the ordinary given room to tell its tale.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle. Film Review. full post

(437 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

The Hummingbird Project. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgard, Salem Hayek, Michael Mando, Johan Heldenbergh, Ayisha Issa, Mark Slacke, Sarah Goldberg, Frank Schorpion, Kwasi Songui, Conrad Pla, Julian Bailey, Jessica Greco, Robert Reynolds, Anna Maguire, Ryan Ali, Amada Silveria, Kaniehtiio Horn, Tyler Elliot Burke, Clara Nicholas, Bobo Vian, Igor Ovadis, Bonnie Mak, Bruce Dinsmore, Jonathan Dubsky, Anton Koval, Adam Bernett, Trinity Forrest, Nicholas Fransolet, Christian Jadah.

The Hummingbird Project. Film Review. full post

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

Gemma Mae Anderson, Life. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Life is not a sentence to be endured, to be suffered and treated as a series of trials in which the only sustained answer comes with the acceptance of our lot, instead, and no matter the circumstances, it should be the experience in which we are defined, and seen to live in what should be different circumstances but nonetheless, still living, hoping and reaching our fullest potential.

Life should also always accept that it is about raising awareness, of beating down prejudice, of the pre-conceived notion that harms so many, and above all leaving a positive presence when people think of our soul or catch themselves uttering our name.

Gemma Mae Anderson, Life. Album Review. full post

(436 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Salt House, Huam. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The first time you heard the call of the owl as you wandered wearily through the forest or local woods after the dark had settled in and nature just got that little bit more real, would have arguably been the moment when you realised just how vulnerable you were to your emotions, that sound, that Huam as the Scottish language would describe it, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and make you understand that you are not the master of your environment, that the world is bigger and infinitely more complex that you first gave it credit. 

Salt House, Huam. Album Review. full post

(393 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Night Of The Living Dead Remix, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Laura Atherton, Morgan Bailey, Luke Bigg, Will Holstead, Morven Macbeth, Matt Prendergast, Adela Rajnovic.

To combine the precision of a cinematic lens and the immediacy and freedom that the theatre provides is to perhaps immerse an audience into a noirish cascade of emotional uncertainty, one that leaves them breathless, suitably claustrophobic in their minds and one that gives the senses free reign to relish, to take absolute pleasure in the psychological fear that out there in the world is a disease that has the potential to place humanity in danger.

Night Of The Living Dead Remix, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Ben Bostick, Among The Faceless Crowd. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

We all have regrets, no matter how hard we try to purge them, or even deny to others that they exist, that will always follow us around like a black cloud of wrong decision in an otherwise blameless and unyielding sky.

Ben Bostick, Among The Faceless Crowd. Album Review. full post

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

John Blues Boyd, Through My Eyes. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Never mind walking a mile in another’s person’s shoes, that only teaches you a partial history of their life, to understand their existence, the things they have seen, the views they have held and the lives they have seen rise, fall and become history, then the only way to experience empathy is to heed them when they say view life Through My Eyes.

John Blues Boyd, Through My Eyes. Album Review. full post

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

Kit Hawes & Aaron Catlow, Pill Pilots. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is not in deep waters that we find the use of a guide, but in dealing with the shallower and smaller depths of life that we wish for a navigator, the one who will, without qualm or apprehension of spirit, know exactly the right path in which to lead you away from danger and back to the high seas and the thrill of adventure.

Kit Hawes & Aaron Catlow, Pill Pilots. Album Review. full post

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