Dave O’ Grady, Songs For The Room (My Oldest Friend/ Whiskey) Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The feeling of loss is something that overwhelms us all at times, whether it’s for a person, a situation, a much loved memory or an ideal, loss is as much at the heart of Human experience as joy and triumph. It takes though someone with passion running through their veins to put those words into an emotion that we can feel, that we can feel the sense of such things and into which the grief and pain soon subside because they have offered the prospect of truth in their words.

Dave O’ Grady, Songs For The Room (My Oldest Friend/ Whiskey) Single Review. full post

(384 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Drip Feed Poison.

The tale of the credit card thief

is one that is hard to stomach,

not the person who finds themselves unable

to pay back what they have borrowed,

Time has a habit of making martyrs

out the most carefully sewn purses,

for the ones who push their refined snout

into the bin of inequality and declare

with the grace and attitude

that they are not getting their fair

share of the leftovers whilst hoarding

the banquet that would give a King a ruptured heart

and have his over gorged head removed

Drip Feed Poison. full post

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

Mam! I’m ‘Ere!, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Eithne Browne, Helen Carter, Paul Duckworth, Michael Fletcher, Rachael Rae, Andrew Schofield, Alan Stocks, Keddy Sutton, Jamie Hampson, Hayley Hampson.

Musicians: Emily Linden, Simeon Scheuber, Alex Smith, Lauren Williams.

 

One of the great musical comedies to have come out of Liverpool in the last few years has to be the outstanding Mam! I’m ‘Ere! Making its debut in the grand space of The Dome, it took audiences to a place where imagination and riotous laughter met, shook hands, frolicked in the winter cold and sent them home happier than a free weeks pass at a holiday camp with drink supplied.

Mam! I’m ‘Ere!, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(487 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Mohawk Radio, Oblivion. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Oblivion, the overwhelming sense that beyond this mortal coil of poets of Kings lays the vastness of nothingness; the stranglehold of complete and utter black void where dreams are shattered and lost for eternity. Oblivion though is not always the end, perhaps as with Manchester’s Mohawk Radio’s latest single taken from their current E.P. Halfway To Heaven, it is bit a beginning, a foundation in which eternity is placed within caring hands and then rocked till the heart is exhausted and the sound of stirring vocals caresses the remains.

Mohawk Radio, Oblivion. Single Review. full post

(341 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

The Extra Granted Second.

The atomic clock granted an extra second,

like some miserly, downcast and heartbroken Scrooge,

it offered no extra bonus,

such as a break from the brain

and the incessant noise of Time chipping away at our lives

with a tiny hammer, sculpting the grave before

we have had chance to crawl,

nor did it shove in a half day’s rest period in which Humanity

could look up at the stars and wonder why our feet

were firmly stuck in bronzing clay.

Instead it suggested to the scientists polishing its hardened shell

The Extra Granted Second. full post

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

Jane And Lizzy, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Elisa Cowley, Bekah Sloan, Tom Burroughs.

It is said that the profession that feels closest to the act of death is writing, the long lonely hours, the solitude, the feeling of other worldly existence and the remarkable pain and suffering that goes unconsciously with it, it can be seen as shaking hands with the great beyond, stepping into the light that comes with modern laptops.

Jane And Lizzy, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(508 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Everyone’s Going To Die, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Nora Tschirner, Rob Knighton, Kellie Shirley, Stirling Gallagher, Liberty Selby, Madeline Duggan, Eliza Harrison-Dine, Ellie Chidzey, Dimitrijs Burilov, Mark Kempner, Kylie Hutchinson, Jamie Chung, Ionut Paliev, Dizzy Maggs, Reuben Perdios, Steve Thomas, Clayton Thomson, Kay McLoughlin, Glenn Mccance, Brett Goldstein.

There is no such thing as a boring subject, just uninterested people, just as there is no such thing as a tedious town or village which covers itself in the dull and lacklustre, there are just people who don’t want to be there.

Everyone’s Going To Die, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(461 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Solmanath’s Revenge On The Psyche Of July.

Hewi-Manod slips off her Ruby rings,

collected over time, given in earnest

in hopes of marriage proposal, no suitor

ever realising she was already with child

but not yet laden with drought and looks ahead

to the start of Dog Days and the spoils of war

that she will soon bring.

 

Whisper slowly, war is coming…

 

The blood courses through the two bodies with the eagerness

of a rattlesnake caught on drifting sands,

one eye on survival, one upon the gleaming future ahead

Solmanath’s Revenge On The Psyche Of July. full post

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

Kacey Musgraves, Pageant Material. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The trailer may still be in the same spot where she parked up for her previous album in 2013 but the sense of maturity as a musician even in those couple of years and the light years since she first played around with her own independent recordings is something that comes across with much depth in Kacey Musgraves latest release, Pageant Material and which has seen the trailer become an impregnable fortress.

Kacey Musgraves, Pageant Material. Album Review. full post

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

Thy Art Is Murder, Holy War. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

All art is subjective, one person’s Medieval pious statue is another’s form of intolerance and exploitation, one person’s take on Michelangelo’s gift to the Vatican and the Pope can fill them with wonder, another will look upon it and witness not creation but decadence and human objectivity; it is in perhaps these conflicting emotions that the surging emotions of Holy War are seeded.

Thy Art Is Murder, Holy War. Album Review. full post

(429 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)