Dark Angel. Television Review. (2016).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Joanne Froggatt, Alun Armstrong, Isla Mowbray, Laura Morgan, George Kent, Jonas Armstrong, Emma Fielding, Hayley Walters, John Hollingworth, Alexander McMonigle, Seamus O’Neill, John Bowler, Sam Hoare, Tom Varey, Penny Layden, George Potts, Paul Bentall, Isobel Dobson, Bill Fellows, Mike Burnside, Edward Gower, Niall Ashdown, Thomas Howes, Mark Underwood, Nigel Cooke, Jake Lawson, Jacob Anderton, Mark Holgate, Joanna Horton, Laura Jane Matthewson, Paul Brennen, Ferdy Roberts, Michael Culkin, Shaun Prendergast, Phil Cheadle.

Dark Angel. Television Review. (2016). full post

(702 words, estimated 2:48 mins reading time)

Belinda Kempster & Fran Foote, On Clay Hill. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The urge for revolution is one that is a driving force but one that must not consume all in the rage and the battle, it surely must burn the excess and the ravages of desperation. It should not harm a single breath of the tradition that is built up from the songs and thoughts of the labourer, the seamstress, the cook and the cloth maker, all who have worked in the fields have their songs, all who have manually lifted in the factories and toiled underground have sang to ease the day, and On Clay Hill the sound continues, the song of tradition and ancestors is revered.

Belinda Kempster & Fran Foote, On Clay Hill. Album Review. full post

(399 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Dan Walsh, Trio. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A solitary person can still wield influence if their message is pure and will resound with those who seek information from outside the echo bubble that contains the multitude as they sip from the same continuous well of obligated agreement.

A lone figure will always be noticed in a way that a cast of thousands cannot, only becoming a random sea of faces and quickly dismissed from the mind. The story is more direct, and yet add into the equation what mysteries a Trio can attest to, what genius can lay in that power of three, unbreakable, linked by mutual stimulus. A Trio is one that captures the imagination and sees the world for what it is, a place where the charismatic can prosper, especially if their message is one of intense collaboration.

Dan Walsh, Trio. Album Review. full post

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

Supersonic Blues Machine, Road Chronicles: Live. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The road calls, history’s future narrative is weaved between petrol pump and the climax of the end of night shadows in which the unsuspecting artist is greeted by the proof that their work moves souls and makes walls tremble in the anticipation of being laid waste.

Supersonic Blues Machine, Road Chronicles: Live. Album Review. full post

(417 words, 1 image, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Metallica, Gig Review. Etihad Stadium, Manchester.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In its short history the Etihad Stadium, the home of the current Premier League champions Manchester City, has witness despondency and glory in almost equal measure, but perhaps its more defining moments have come in the last ten years, late goals which have described a generation. A single moment in which a crowd hero made his mark for eternity deep into stoppage time and left a commentator breathless, a television hanging on the end of an extended vowel that still raises the hairs on the back of the neck and sends a shiver down the spine of anyone fortunate to have witnessed it take place.

Metallica, Gig Review. Etihad Stadium, Manchester. full post

(576 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Manic Street Preachers, Gig Review. Anfield Stadium, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The Manic Street Preachers are no strangers to Liverpool, having the rare bestowment of love given to them by the city for the part they have played in music history but also in the way they have sided with the city in political respects, they have felt the damage to the city and its citizens’ reputations as surely had they plied their early days continually performing at the Lomax or gigging round the town on a daily basis. No strangers, just another opportunity in which to perform in a city they love, and to perform at the home of the European Champions as support to Bon Jovi must surely rank as one of the great moments of the band’s history.

Manic Street Preachers, Gig Review. Anfield Stadium, Liverpool. full post

(411 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

What We Do In The Shadows. Series One. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kavyan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, Matt Berry, Harvey Guillen, Mark Proksch, Doug Jones, Beanie Feldstein, Gloria Laino, Jake McDorman, Anthony Atamanuik, Alexandra Henrikson,  Kristen Schaal,  Nick Kroll, Taika Waititi, Ari Barker, Jemaine Clement, Tilda Swinton, Jessica B. Hill, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Trejo, Wesley Snipes, Dave Bautista.

What We Do In The Shadows. Series One. Television Review. full post

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

Ghost, Gig Review. Etihad Stadium, Manchester.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

You could travel to the end of recorded time and rarely come across a moment in which you see a support act on stage which leaves you with the impression that you wish they had more time, not to establish themselves in the eyes of the audience, but to dominate, to dictate terms of your surrender, absolute and unequivocally.

The feeling does happen occasionally, but it is one that arguably doesn’t sit in the gut unless they are a band to which has already had the presence of mind to rule a section of the crowd that has come to pay homage to the main act.

Ghost, Gig Review. Etihad Stadium, Manchester. full post

(396 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Dog Bless You, Banksters. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The world doesn’t need satire, but it deserves it, and when the people are taken for a ride, when the greatest parody of all is the double talk of politicians and the rise of fear of losing it all to those with more money than sense, that is when satire comes along and grapples with the officers in charge of the ever diminishing cage.

Dog Bless You, Banksters. Album Review. full post

(361 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

Decay, Modern Conversations. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The bitterest pill we can swallow is the one when we realise that the discussion and exchange of hope we want to have with another human being is dominated either by aggression or by dismissal. One person’s reaching out and imploring is another’s chance to assert themselves to the point where hostility and conflict is inevitable. It is the contemporary way, we are fuelled by anger, disappointment and the prevailing winds of knowing each other’s business that we arguably feel as though we instinctively know better.

Decay, Modern Conversations. E.P. Review. full post

(390 words, 1 image, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)