The Tirith, Tales From The Tower. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Progressive Rock never truly went away, it might have lost its bearing for a while, it might have been mugged and left battered and bruised, bereft of its credentials by the doubters, haters and the advent of Punk in all its glorious shades giving it perhaps a giant kicking when the beast had lumbered on long past its first revolution. Progressive Rock never went away, despite it all and since 2000 has really been in a rich vein of form that has seen it out last time wise past both its original incarnation and the short but glimmering second coming spearheaded by the likes of Marillion.

The Tirith, Tales From The Tower. Album Review. full post

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

99 Percent

I shout with the 99 percent that you sir are wrong.

Your misguided belief that we dislike, abhor, detest and despise

you, some would say hate but I would not want to

see you put up against the same crumbling

partition that is in some measure destroyed with the bullet holes

of the lesser dead, I would not see you strive for martyrdom;

is born out of jealousy,

a suspicion of covetousness and envy,

that your singular belief

that if we don’t have the same level of money as you

99 Percent full post

(273 words, estimated 1:06 mins reading time)

Michael Monroe, Blackout States. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

You can’t beat a good old fashioned Rock record, it has the power to turn around a day in your favour, it has the ability to shine its magnificent torch into areas of conscious that often go unexplored and it breathes for the chance to take the soul on a journey of discovery. Above all, if the lyrics strike home with perfect clarity, it has the capacity within each layered song to shake the foundations of the house to the point where the neighbours either complain or bang on the door, carrying a keg of beer and wanting to join in the party.

Michael Monroe, Blackout States. Album Review. full post

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

New Tricks: Lottery Curse. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tamzin Outhwaite, Larry Lamb, Jack Deam, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Derek Riddell, Amanda Root, Adie Allen, Henry Garrett, Glen Wallace, Lucy Thackeray.

Money has a habit of making the previously virtuous become greedy, almost ready to become a monster tied to the pursuit of its lure and the filth that can come with it arriving out of the blue and too much, too soon. If money makes the world go round then it’s surprising at times that any Bank worth its lecherous salt hasn’t dibbed ownership on the speed and velocity and tried to see it off in a hedge fund.

New Tricks: Lottery Curse. Television Review. full post

(476 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Ian Prowse, Compañeros. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Ian Prowse has set aside drawing on his own prolific output to introduce the listener to some of the songwriters he has encountered over the years. “Troubadours”, as he describes them, whose songs have been “lost, trodden down in the mud, or were kicked sideways into the ditch by an unforgiving music industry.” It’s a magnanimous gesture and one that will reward all concerned in the album  Compañeros.

Ian Prowse credits Kevin Jamieson (Town and Country Blues) for inspiring him to imbue his music with the Celtic Soul that had “entered his being like a musical Toronto Blessing.” It’s a Latinate/country romp during which Ian Prowse seems to have discovered a new vocal style, almost a growl.

Ian Prowse, Compañeros. Album Review. full post

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

A Hundred Days Of Solitute.

A hundred days of solitude, she whispered,

time to take back what was yours, peace in your time,

time in which to breathe easy in the dying decaying air

and kiss me,

truly kiss me, not with passion or with hunger for what

lays beneath the ragged shirt and muscles betrayed

by the press of a button somewhere by a young kid

with sweating palms, but kiss me

though I was once loved by Gods,

one adored by the sound of a cello and violin

teasing each other back and forth, true love in the balcony,

A Hundred Days Of Solitute. full post

(254 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Dave McCabe & The Ramifications, Church Of Miami. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Miami is not only a place, it is an institution. A city in which British travellers minds may turn to when thinking of the one place on America’s Eastern continental edge to which the history (New York, Philadelphia, Boston), the gambling and sense of old style profiteering (New Jersey) and the consequence of squabbles, in fighting and racial tension, (anywhere that verges and bleeds into North V South) play almost no part; Miami is the Mediterranean of the North Americas, it is the place to go when everything else has been done and what should be next is the rest and relaxation, the apparent fun and the soulful looking for meaning in later life. Miami is not a place; it is a state of mind.

Dave McCabe & The Ramifications, Church Of Miami. Album Review. full post

(468 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Geoghegan Jackson, Parlour In The Sun. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is always time for the harmony and the beauty of lyrical aspiration to join forces in this world, when they do there is a certain potency of achievement that comes through in any piece of art that is laid bare for the audience to hear, see and immerse themselves into.

Geoghegan Jackson, Parlour In The Sun. E.P. Review. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Room 101.

Into my own personal and despairing Room 101

I would place you, for the lack of noble spirit

you betray, you seek to deceive with

and place any type of good will towards,

your disloyalty to the abiding

clarity of Human spirit

is but a disease, a smoking stain

on the face of the Earth

and I judge you unfit

to be smiled upon.

 

I would place those loyal to black raging heart,

I would consign to nothingness

those who seek to destroy all that is good,

Room 101. full post

(292 words, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)

Until Dawn (PS4), Game Review.

Game Review: Until Dawn (PS4)

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5 out of 10

Until Dawn is a horror game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store exclusively for the PS4. The game was originally announced at Gamescom 2012 as a PS3 exclusive which was to support the PlayStation Move motion controller in a first-person perspective; despite a 2013 release window the game remained unreleased and was feared to have been cancelled until developer Supermassive Games clarified that it was still actively in development which was proved true at Gamescom 2014 when Until Dawn was re-revealed as a PS4 exclusive.

Until Dawn (PS4), Game Review. full post

(3217 words, estimated 12:52 mins reading time)