Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare (PS4), Game Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5 /10

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a first-person shooter game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. The Call of Duty series originated on October 29th 2003 with the release of the very first version of the game on Windows in which the Call of Duty brand has since spanned numerous consoles and become one of the most successful and highest grossing entertainment franchises of all time as proved by the close to 200,000,000 units sold across all eleven major entries into the Call of Duty series between the original in 2003 through the story arcs of Modern Warfare trilogy and Black Ops games to Call of Duty: Ghosts in 2013 and Advanced Warfare having already sold millions itself with many spin-offs along the way too, alongside the billions of hours of online multiplayer gameplay logged throughout the series. The major question entering Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare must be if the new iteration brings anything new to the table to genuinely reinvent the series.

Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare (PS4), Game Review. full post

(4378 words, estimated 17:31 mins reading time)

David Mills: Gimme Some Sugar. Homotopia, Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision 7/10

Comedy is truly subjective; it is perhaps the one art form that can divide a room quicker than a partitioned wall. In some cases what makes you laugh can have your friend seething or wriggling uncomfortably as if they are attempting to go through customs with every illegal purchase placed in the most delicate of places.

For David Mills, a first time performer at the superbly adept and run Homotopia, the jokes and observances are well placed, they even have the adherence of finely tuned comic execution running through them, it’s just that at times even the hard of hearing can hear the sweat crawl down the neck of the suitably embarrassed as if a snail had suddenly mastered the art of roller skating over razor blades.

David Mills: Gimme Some Sugar. Homotopia, Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(335 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

Rae, Awoken. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Behind the simplest name can stand a giant in waiting! For Leonie Evans, Lorenzo Prati, Leon Boyden and Dan Truen, Rae is a word of simplicity, of unforgettable naming, but it is a band that hides within its soul, a sound so complete, so wonderfully down-trodden that it hits below the belt time after time and catches the listener unaware of what is happening to them. Now with their brand new album, Awoken, ready to captivate and further enhance the feeling of sitting in a cigar filled room and seeing the smoke part just enough to allow vision to take in clarity, Rae step out from beyond the shadows and blast their music all over your ear-drums.

Rae, Awoken. Album Review. full post

(422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Mojo Makers, Devils Hands. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The smell of the Deep South, the history, both devastating and brutal and at times glorious and electrifying; you could be there sitting on a wooden porch listening to sound of crickets as they mock the alligators that wait patiently ready to snap, feeling the noxious aroma of sweat running down the back of a horse’s fetlock that stands idly by flicking its tail back and forth and the thoughts of a night in local bar with a crowd of people enjoying a tasty night of Blues. The Deep South has that all to offer…even it seems when it comes in the form of Denmark’s The Mojo Makers and the tremendous follow up to Wait Till the Morning, the thumping Devils Hands. 

Mojo Makers, Devils Hands. Album Review. full post

(408 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Larry Miller, Soldier Of The Line. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

History is made by those that write it. Whether for ill or for good, the written word is the perfect response to an event; even a hundred years after the aftermath and fallout that has been captured forever in a slice of Time. The writers, musicians and photographers somehow manage to evoke a message of rememberance that is perhaps unique amongst all of human responses to a critical event or personal emotion. Especially when seen through the eyes of the passionate and highly skilled.

Larry Miller, Soldier Of The Line. Album Review. full post

(434 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

James Frost, Nameless. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Some things remain Nameless, that is good as it injects an air of mystery and anonymous secrecy ….It is possibly down to many factors that Norwich is not known for many things in the general scheme of thought. Beyond perhaps one of Steve Coogan’s many comedic creations, the erstwhile Delia Smith, her beloved Norwich City Football Club and its stunning scenery, for many, unhappily and shamefully, the pre-eminent Norfolk city doesn’t really get that much coverage. Stuck as it is seemingly miles from anywhere, it truly is a capital of its own cut off country, only the half soaked land stopping it from being an island of incredible curiosity.

James Frost, Nameless. E.P. Review. full post

(434 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Walls.

The legendary giant of heavy rock has his back turned away from me

as he stands guard and watches over all the other photographic memories

in the room.

There is no false great works of art upon the walls of the house,

aside from those I have chosen to place against the half decorated structure.

When I was younger I had posters that scattered the three walled sides in my Bicester

bedroom and I was told that eventually I would grow

to having just the one perfectly wooden framed piece of art to stare at and draw

Walls. full post

(1028 words, estimated 4:07 mins reading time)

Tallulah Rendall, Gig Review. Coffee House Sessions. University of Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The gig goer will sit proudly on a stool and sometimes proclaim to any who listen about the time they once did two gigs in one day. It is an act that deserves respect; that they should be willing to travel to catch a show in one part of the country and then get back nearer home to revel in another show. It doesn’t happen all that often as time constraints are such that it just doesn’t fit into the 24 hours allotted to us to be able to pull it off.

Tallulah Rendall, Gig Review. Coffee House Sessions. University of Liverpool. full post

(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Lee Gallagher And The Hallelujah. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Somewhere between Bon Scott, Jim Morrison, the natural street like beauty of Steve Marriott and Jump’s John Dexter Jones lays the sweet heartbeat of Lee Gallagher and The Hallelujah.

It is one of the great pleasures in life that allows a person to hear the untwisted and unhindered emotion that a vocalist can bring to the delicately placed chord arrangements of the band that shroud the lyrical mystique to such a point where the words on offer to the listener take on air of mystery, a puzzle in which to immerse yourself into and gently work out what makes the charisma of the band tick so vibrantly.

Lee Gallagher And The Hallelujah. Album Review. full post

(355 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Foo Fighters, Sonic Highways. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

There is putting a shift in and there is pushing it just that one step far before the first signs of a crumble start to appear. It can happen if time is not taken away from the studio and the filtering system of creativity is slightly blunted and becomes torn round the edges. The greats can get away with it however for perhaps a little while longer and whilst Sonic Highways, the new studio album from Foo Fighters, is for the most part a rock dream it is sadly not the full romp that has come to define the group for last decade and a half.

Foo Fighters, Sonic Highways. Album Review. full post

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