Us. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon, Madison Curry, Ashley McKoy, Napiera Groves, Lon Gowan, Alan Frazier, Duke Nicholson, Dustin Ybarra, Nathan Harrington, Kara Hayward.

After World War Two American cinema developed a schizophrenic relationship with the idea of the everyday person being replaced by its doppelganger, mainly through the use of Science Fiction and in films that showed an alien invasion, the replicas at the time being a perfect, is sensualised, analogy for the Communist threat; that we didn’t truly know who was one of them, and who was one of Us.

Us. Film Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: Orphan 55. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Laura Fraser, Gia Re, James Buckley, Julia Foster, Amy Booth-Steel, Will Austin, Col Farrell, Lewin Lloyd, Spencer Wilding.

Regardless of whether we feel like we are being preached to, or we accept that occasionally we require reminding, we are not the masters of our world; we may act like it, we rape and pillage all the natural resources, shed a tear as animals burn but count the pounds, shillings and pence as we profit from yet another mine opening, another plastic bag found at the bottom of the sea but we save a tenner on a flight. Such is the cause and effect of our actions on the planet, that we can be seen as monsters in our own reflections, not matter how much good we try to bestow.

Doctor Who: Orphan 55. Television Review. full post

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

Vera: Blood Will Tell. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Brenda Blethyn, Kenny Doughty, Jon Morrison, Ibinabo Jack, Riley Jones, Paul Kaye, Barry Aird, Marian McLoughlin, David Birrell, Jalaal Hartley, Charlotte Pyke, Simon Trinder, Josh Barrow, Brian Lonsdale, Viraj Juneeja, Amaka Okafor, Janine Birkett, Jay Saighal, Jonathan Spencer, Charity Bedu-addo.

When it comes to murder, motive is seen as a prime indication of guilt, the trouble being is that an investigation is rarely that clean and clear cut and if everyone who had motive acted out on the dark fantasy of assassination and killing, then there would be an awful lot more bodies on the pathologist’s table; such is our depths of self-destruction and possible fall outs that death and murder are the two constants that drive the universe on.

Vera: Blood Will Tell. Television Review. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Anchor Lane, Casino. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Roll the dice and call your number, you can do worse than watch the emotional smorgasbord that takes place in any Casino after hours. The rolling of the bones, life at its most infinite, desperate, joyful, regretful and cunning, the observance of the cheater who thinks they have gone unnoticed, the player surrounded by the handsome, the rich and the gullible. All hoping for their mark and their cut of the fortune on offer, the Casino holds their attention to the last dime has been wagered.

Anchor Lane, Casino. Album Review. full post

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

The Goes Wrong Show: A Trial To Watch. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Bryony Corrigan, Dave Hearn, Henry Lewis, Charlie Russell, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields, Greg Tannahill, Nancy Zamit.

The art of farce and slapstick is form that only comes alive when the whole production is behind it, it cannot be achieved in half measures, it requires all the cast to be on their absolute game; a situation where the magic of the farce is brutally exploited to make the belief of ineptness become just as much as part of the act as the mockery and cynicism to which the situation calls for.

The Goes Wrong Show: A Trial To Watch. Television Review. full post

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

Julie Abbe, Numberless Dreams. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A Poet will sing such sweet serenades to their love, whilst always making eyes at another Muse, their belief of their own structured mortality allows them to fall in love whilst never chasing the final act, the courtship being an unrivalled sentence to the finality offered by the closed off chapter and succession in what they would term conquering the affections in Numberless Dreams.

Julie Abbe, Numberless Dreams. Album Review. full post

(355 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Gary Moore: Live From London. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It is usually only with hindsight that we regretfully see just how one person’s artistic talent was never truly realised during their lifetime and whilst Blues-man Gary Moore was often and rightly, lauded for his prowess, it is only with the benefit of reinvestigation and reappraisal that we truly understand what we have lost. The subtly of performance, the devastating mood that he could affect and the range in which the genre owes him arguably a debt for being one of the few of its sources who managed to bridge the divide between its golden Rock period and the inspiration afforded the new generation which has come to pass in the years since he unfortunately died.

Gary Moore: Live From London. Album Review. full post

(427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Palm Ghosts, Wide Awake And Waiting. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The world has not only lost its way, it could be argued that in its madness it has taken us all hostage and yet with no hope of a ransom being paid, it slowly, and surly, finds ways to grind us down, we escape in a fantasy to combat the emotional turmoil we feel and we stare at screen all day in the hope it brings us respite and hope of escape. It is not the fault of some all-powerful, non-existent Matrix, it is the way we have allowed ourselves to be conditioned, we are reactive, not proactive enough, and we have lost the ability to be Wide Awake And Waiting to strike home at those who would have us all in pens.

Palm Ghosts, Wide Awake And Waiting. E.P. Review. full post

(440 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Lordi, Killection. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

“No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense (sic) soon lapses into the true character“, so observed Seneca The Younger, and it is pretence that we often seek the answers to the surreal and perplexing question of What If?

There are many scenarios to such a question, but for Finnish Metal Kings Lordi, the question has become posed in Time, the “What if” of a lost album, the sudden release, unexpected, unknown collection of songs that hark back to a period in which Glam Rock and the vibe of the 70s insight reigned supreme, it is to that supposed lost recording that Killection follows the path laid out by imagination and by the fortitude of expression.

Lordi, Killection. Album Review. full post

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

DeWolff, Tascam Tapes. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Living in the moment is underrated, the spur of the idea to capture the seedling fruit that sparks imagination and pursuit is often neglected in favour of the overblown scene of completion, the large arc often overshadowing the burst of introspection that gives way to simplicity and minimalistic craftsmanship.

DeWolff, Tascam Tapes. Album Review. full post

(349 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)