Crash City Saints, Are You Free? Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The path to salvation is whatever you desire it to be, sometimes it is filled with razor wire and the half dragged painted signposts which declare the two word legend of Keep Out with stern authority but with half a wink in the eyes that dares the wanderer, the searcher of truth to climb over and see how far they get.

At other times the pathway is clear, find the one thing that drives you and keep doing it, for the lucky, for the fortunate, music is the only way to be considered, like that beautiful stranger who entrances you with wild plans and the urge to fly, sometimes salvation is exactly where it has always been, in the arms of music.

Crash City Saints, Are You Free? Album Review. full post

(447 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Three Footballing Heroes Of The School Yard.

The once smoky atmosphere of the bar,

now cleaned by regulation

but somehow losing its charm

in the modern day transformation

would always see conversation

take shape in the air

about who was the greatest

footballer that ever lived.

Names bandied round

like solid facts,

all different and full of truth in their own way,

I offered a Dutch master, poise and panache

the steady stroke of artistry,

drawn from memory,

painted with deft strokes and unnerving realism,

vivid with expression, imagination

Three Footballing Heroes Of The School Yard. full post

(195 words, estimated 47 secs reading time)

Danny & The Champions Of the World, Brilliant Light. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Whether it a candle flickering wildly, a torch shone with investigative intent or the power of a the brightest of stars filling the galaxy with such luminosity that it cannot be hidden from,  that not even turning your back upon it and cradling your eyes shut tight, the Brilliant Light will always be revealing and beautifully cruel.

Danny & The Champions Of the World, Brilliant Light. Album Review. full post

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

Amy Henderson, Soul For A Compass. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The accordion is a much underrated musical apparatus, in honesty it may not look as graceful as a violin, it might not have the same appeal as the cello and it perhaps doesn’t have the associated aura of sexuality that comes with the saxophone. However, what it may lack in looks to the concert goer, it more than makes up for in sound, passion and the upbeat heart that most musical instruments cannot live with and nod in deference too when the song requires the same meaty and energetic pulse but with something extra, the close keen eyed observance of the hypnotic soul.

Amy Henderson, Soul For A Compass. Album Review. full post

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

Adam Barnes, Bad Luck. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Luck or preparation, what can seem like two separate entities, can be at times the same feeling but looked upon from different views in a hall of mirrors as one and the same, they can melt and bleed into one another and be seen as fortune made good. The reverse can also be true, that practise skipped and dedication to the cause missed is the mother in the mirror of the universal Bad Luck, the ill fortune and the struggle for acceptance in the eyes of the peers and the bold, is regarded as the meeting of the mistimed and out of step.

Adam Barnes, Bad Luck. Single Review. full post

(326 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, Paradise 5. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Alex Macqueen, James D’Arcy, Helen Goldwyn, Andree Bernard, Teddy Kempner, Claire Wyatt, Richard Earl.

You can always trust humanity to turn to the more unsavoury pursuits of existence, murder, slavery, greed, power, materialism and brutality, in the time it takes to say there is money to be made from people’s misery and where is the will; for in the vice of stone hearted souls nothing comes close to feeding damnation than the love of money.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, Paradise 5. Audio Drama Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Spiderman: Homecoming, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Laura Harrier, Tyne Daly, Chris Evans.

It is easy to see why Spiderman is amongst the favourites of all the super heroes that have come and gone since the much heralded Golden Age of the genre; funny, wisecracking, prone to teenage angst, the fine line between the big picture and the tiniest detail always shown as brightly as possible, a young lad protecting his neighbourhood rather than taking on the world. Since his first appearance in comic book and on screen, through Saturday morning cartoon and posters on the wall, any young person and any adult who remembers the feeling, will always be entranced by Peter Parker and Spiderman.

Spiderman: Homecoming, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(605 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

John Finnamore’s Double Acts: The Goliath Window. Radio Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Simon Kane, John Finnemore.

Looking back at the way the English language has evolved, advanced to a point where it was almost beautifully poetic, even when it was intended to deride and ridicule the pompous, arrogant or ridiculously self-important, it seems a shame that in the current age we seem to have fallen back on a much cruder tongue, to a point where even the insults are flat and rely on slugged barbs rather than wit, wisdom and the smile of a verbal attack well made.

John Finnamore’s Double Acts: The Goliath Window. Radio Review. full post

(444 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

The Opening Ball Of Summer.

 

Summer should only start at the moment

when the first ball of the opening innings

of the first test is sent down the pitch

by a bowler who has found an extra yard

since Christmas.

Whilst April and the wet dew of Spring

heralds the days when you can ignore family

for six months of luxury

of a set of headphones firmly

implanted down the ear

and the commentator’s eye finding

the slow drawn crease akin

to the artistry of Michelangelo’s David

and attendance of the

The Opening Ball Of Summer. full post

(130 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)

David Nixon’s Navigation, This Side, Other Side. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

No matter where you point the compass, it is not necessarily a case of deciding to travel East or West or to choose between the polar opposites of North and South, it is on occasion just a simple preference between This Side, Other Side, no more, no less, the anticipation of wondering if the path we choose happens to be the right one or just a moment of mistakes.

David Nixon’s Navigation, This Side, Other Side. Album Review. full post

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