Trust me,
it was just so much easier
to push you away
than letting you live
with a time bomb,
one that ticks in the soul
wrapped in pot marked skin,
the melancholy held at bay
only by the desperate knowledge
tucked away
that at some point
I will fathom out
how to smash the reset button;
I pushed you all away
because Time is cruel,
it deceives
as you once did
when you pretended
to be my comrade.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It might be considered a tad too much to want to roll out the red carpet, to place the fireworks ready in the strategic place and put the brightly coloured bunting out, to basically throw a party the size of Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall but to welcome back one of the great live and studio acts of the last ten year. Well, perhaps the red carpet might be a bit glaring but the fact remains that the exceptional Natalie McCool is very much one of the great female acts of the last decade and is up there with the likes of Joanne Shaw Taylor for bringing the very best out of music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It seems typical that the superbly angry, the enraged beauty, that lives and breathes inside one of the most talked about bands, The Sneaky Nixons, should produce a great song with the idea of someone else’s misfortune as its central theme. Maybe nobody else would dare, nobody else would go that far but for The Sneaky Nixons, it’s not about causing upset, it is bringing the very real idea home that there are people out there who just seem to get an absolute kick from the act of Schadenfreude.
Emily should play,
hanging around not caring
about the damage she has done
or the boys on Cowley Road
who care
not about the mask
she uses to appear hard, to seem
aloof to the propositions of undying
love, her reality warped, treated
to a future not intended for her
when we used to cuddle her as she fell
asleep on the lap and her glasses
slowly sliding down her button created nose;
Emily should play,
the Cowley Road calls
and a hundred miles away
Pick your corner, I’m ready for a fight
I’ve got a gun, you’ve got a knife
I’m going to shoot you down at high noon
In a Western Avenue gunfighters duel
Going to joyride with the Crump St. gang
Play cops and robbers with the blue lights on
Tear around on two wheels ,get high on skunk weed
Rob Peter to pay Paul he’s a Drug lord Creed
Speke town showndown smashing glass on the street
Smigger psycho behaviour in violence we deal
Twin guns, repeated automatic fire
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The moment of shock, the element of surprise that is able to breathe inside the minds of those with imagination, is always such a treat to come across because most will only see the title of something without listening or reading beyond and whilst the name of the E.P. will quite rightly raise an eyebrow and even have some spluttering over their hard boiled tea, The Bordellos always have a way of turning the music on its head and coming up with a selection of songs that bite as well nurture the aural glands.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is a kind of humility, of earthy secular cool attached to the isolated and melancholic. Without melancholy, existence is just a set of lines running between extreme happiness and the dark of despondency, melancholy allows the colouring of all courage to be realised, it is the rest that allows the brain and heart to gather strength and become unified in its passion to take on the best.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It seems to be a dichotomy in waiting, the serenity of the title enraged by the possibility of destruction to be wrecked upon the coast; the sacrifice that the coral will offer in place of the spreading and multitudes of sands. When A Shoreline Dream releases the power of the Whirlwind, the mixed message might take some getting used to but soon becomes as hauntingly beautiful as sitting down in the grass covered dunes and letting the water smash over you.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Communication, it can either break down, be misinformed like a game of Chinese Whispers, so much so that it tears minds and friendships apart, or it can restore faith, it can bleed truth, it can be awkward. It can be devastating in its silence and it can be beautiful, something that will make your heart stop and make you sit in the shade of quiet for a while; it is Communication that makes us human and it is the simplicity of it that brings out the finest belief in us all.
Midnight over Mellieha Bay,
new holiday apartments
dotting the once barren sands,
crumbling castles formed
from plastic dream
and two weeks of summer break.
I once caught a glimpse
of the fragmenting Sun
from under the ramparts
of the green umbrella and the screams
of afternoon drunk disciples
lounging erect in the burning shadow;
I blinked and looked out
across the flat sea,
ripples of ebbing life
exhausted by decaying time
and I fear the long trek
up the hill to Mellieha.