Rob Clarke And The Wooltones, Another Wooltones Xmas Record, Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Christmas comes but once a year…though it seems to hang around forever and like some over used decoration that twinkles with the drive of an over eager beagle grabbing at its lead, soon finds its way to get on your nerves long before the main event actually arrives. To not enjoy the time of year leads to labels of being a scrooge, of being curmudgeonly or just plain mean and can lead to being ostracised by those who complain of life being empty when the tinsel falls down and who never mind pine needles being stuck in their big toe at three in the morning. Thank heavens for Rob Clarke and the Wooltones who offer with great sincerity Another Wooltones Xmas Record to let the passing of time have at least one heroic cheer.

Rob Clarke And The Wooltones, Another Wooltones Xmas Record, Single Review. full post

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

Marie-Claire Berreen & Her Husbands, Come Home. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

A woman can never have too many husbands at her side, perhaps if only to do the few jobs she cannot, or at least to give her the right backing, the extra added contribution, when delivering an artful insight into the world. It is in this insight that Marie-Claire Berreen & Her Husbands cherish the responsibility with their brand new album Come Home.

Marie-Claire Berreen & Her Husbands, Come Home. Album Review. full post

(387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Emily Portman, Seed Stitch/Nightjar. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

To lift any single from a truly mesmerising album can be seen on occasion as either an act of wallet piracy or an act of sabotage against the memory of what lingered through the mind when the listener first came across the piece of recording. At worst it can lead to the song being taken out of context, placing the music down as an afterthought desert but one filled with the remains of the starter and the main course.

Emily Portman, Seed Stitch/Nightjar. Single Review. full post

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

Through A Mirror Darkly.

I’m feeling disoriented,

out of sorts with the world

and seeing things I wish not to see

I may as well look in a mirror, to witness

the events in a different light,

the slant,

the obscene askew

and I pray for my soul

that I shall not become

the Jekyll and Hyde

in the seeking game.

 

Through a mirror darkly,

not one cracked from side to side

nor from bottom to top, but one

fractured and splintered

from front to back

through

Through A Mirror Darkly. full post

(207 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

The Flare Path, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Leon Ockenden, Olivia Hallinan, Philip Franks, Adam Best, James Cooney, Simon Darwen, Stephanie Jacob, Shvorne Marks, Siobhan O’ Kelly, William Reay, Holly Smith, Alastair Whatley.

The Second World War asked a lot of the men and women of Britain, of Germany and the greater population of the world, it asked of them for sacrifice, of more resilience than at any time and in many ways to be more selfish in the face of adversity; it is a selfishness of spirit, to not give in despite overwhelming odds and face the world with a smile. It is this selfishness, or at least a singular part of it, that sits at the heart of Terrance Rattigan’s World War Two drama The Flare Path.

The Flare Path, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Lewis: What Lies Tangled. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Kevin Whatley, Laurence Fox, Angela Griffin, Clare Holman, David Warner, Oliver Lansley, Zoë Tapper, Peter De Jersey, Mali Harries, Tristam Saunders, Ian Puleston-Davies, Emerald O’ Hanrahan, Steve Toussaint, Lynda Rooke, Tosin Cole.

The streets of Oxford will be poorer for the fact that Lewis, one of the true greats of British Crime Drama, has been allowed to finish before its time. Robbie Lewis, a man taught by the best that the dreaming spires of Oxford could wish to have investigating its murders and foul deeds, a man to whom honour was all and a man who came back after riding into the sunset, this was a man with a past so knotted in the streets of Oxford that to lose him, the audiences might find themselves bereft and asking What Lies Tangled?

Lewis: What Lies Tangled. Television Review. full post

(458 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 1/10

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, Joey Morgan, Sarah Dumont, Davis Koechner, Halston Sage, Cloris Leachman, Niki Koss, Hiram A. Murray, Lucas Gage, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Blake Anderson, Missy Martinez.

It’s a shame that American cinema cannot learn from its mistakes, especially when it comes to comedy, parody or irony and if the bench mark in recent times had been set low with Bad Neighbours then it doesn’t really get any better with Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.

Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse, Film Review. full post

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

A Hero Of Mine.

He is a hero of mine.

He is one of many granted, not all of them male,

not of all them perhaps the typical heroic type,

some have even let me down

as I have let them down

but I have never stopped loving them

for in each person, I see the hero

trying to burst free, trying to live up to the ideal

set down by the first

and it is a heroic nature that eludes me

completely and without favour.

 

You are a hero, you are someone I admire

A Hero Of Mine. full post

(229 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

Michael Schenker’s Temple Of Rock, Communion / Saviour Machine. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The union that exists between self-respecting Rock lover, the perpetual admirer of all things loud and proud, is one built upon mutual trust and quality of performance. The master class offered by the gigantic gig, the album which sends out streams of pleasure and which can be felt shaking the street as the temperatures rise at the same rate as the volume switch, all these offer much compared to the single, the small dip into a vast ocean and one that feels the waves come baring down too quickly to move out of the way; it never feels like Rock when it is a single or double A Side and yet despite the arguments against it and perhaps only due to the presence of a maestro, does Communion and Saviour Machine come with reverence and esteem built in.

Michael Schenker’s Temple Of Rock, Communion / Saviour Machine. Single Review. full post

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

Dropped Shavings And Bits Of Eraser.

There are pencil shavings on the floor

where I missed the bin

and there they will stay until my penance is over,

the same can be whispered for the remains of a rubber,

quietly judging me, assuming superiority

and remarking upon

the desperation, the vile responsibility placed upon my shoulders

as I hunch over a plastic typewriter,

plastic keys, plastic words, plastic hack

and I wish the pencils would sharpen

themselves and the rubber erase itself

out of existence…

 

…for in their world I am trapped,

Dropped Shavings And Bits Of Eraser. full post

(195 words, estimated 47 secs reading time)