Utopia, Season Two. Episode Three Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Neil Maskell, Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alistair Petrie, Alexandra Roach, Nathen Stewart- Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Kevin Eldon, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Will Attenborough, Allan Corduner, Juliet Cowan, Keith Farnham, Candida Gubbins, Alex Lowe, Bruce Mackinnon, Gerard Monaco, Damien Thomas.

Utopia is never meant to be reached, if it was then Sir Thomas More completely missed the point as he wrote in praise to England before finding himself on the wrong side of a King’s wrath. Dystopia on the other hand is the easiest level of human attainment and for those on the run in Channel 4’s riveting series, Utopia, dystopia might actually be more preferable.

Utopia, Season Two. Episode Three Review. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

The Flash: Move Forward. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

D.C. Comics’ Justice League has so many parts to it, so many interesting characters within its framework that at times the reader could be forgiven for overlooking perhaps one of the more interesting members within its ranks, that of Police Scientist Barry Allen, A.K.A The Flash.

With American television finally producing a television series of one of D.C.’s finest creations, on the back of the success that The Arrow has had, The Flash seems finally ready to take his place in the wider world of acknowledgement as the great hero he has always been.

The Flash: Move Forward. Graphic Novel Review. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Broken Three Ways, Return To The Shack. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Broken Three Ways they might be, however there is nothing fragmented or faulty with the Wirral band’s debut album Return To The Shack.

This punchy force of nature with a sly knowing grin attached album is a breath of fresh air in a world that at times seems to have forgotten what Ska and Punk was about. Whilst Ska especially might not be the first thing you think of when the term the Wirral comes up in conversation, Broken Three Ways address the discussion in waiting head on, the banter that steams into view of comparisons with the likes of The Selecter uppermost on people’s thoughts. There is no comparison worthy of placing before them though, except that they both sound incredibly awesome, it is the only comparison that should be mentioned.

Broken Three Ways, Return To The Shack. Album Review. full post

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

Yes, Heaven & Earth. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Evolution is a wondrous event to behold, revolution can, in part, be just as thrilling; especially when it means the old guard whose ideas have come to a natural end are swept away. To place both progressions into the same album though can seem as though for some, that the world has been turned upside down and that Progressive has just a little bit of its enormous and well-meaning heart.

Yes, arguably the long standing Prog Rock band still going from the initial burst of creative freedom in which Prog bought to the world, somehow have possibly released the worst record of their sustained career.

Yes, Heaven & Earth. Album Review. full post

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

Wonder Woman Volume Two: Guts. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Hell is a place that is reserved for the most evil, the most corrupt or those that have caused such monumental anguish to a fellow human being and it takes a great person to avoid its lure and perhaps aside from Faustus, only a daughter of Zeus might stand any chance of dealing with the realm.

For Wonder Woman, single handed the finest female creation in the D.C. Universe the reason she has to go to Hell is to return Zola, a mortal woman who is the latest in line to be carrying the father of the Gods’ child, back to realm of humanity and away from the lives of those who manipulate the lives of mortals for their own benefit or amusement.

Wonder Woman Volume Two: Guts. Graphic Novel Review. full post

(402 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Monty Python Live (Mostly), Theatre And Cinema Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.

There will be many who will never get what it was all about but for the multitude, Monty Python followed a natural path that had been laid down by The Frost Report, That Was The Week That Was and The Goons, the ability to send up Britain, the revolution of the way we looked at ourselves as a nation in the post war era and in how we finally were able to put two crafty fingers up to a hierarchy in which didn’t care.

Monty Python Live (Mostly), Theatre And Cinema Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool. full post

(446 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

John Hiatt, The Terms Of My Surrender. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

The Terms of My Surrender, the new album by John Hiatt, is far from a submission, a yielding to an audience that has seen Blues once more become a force in the mainstream, with big thanks in part to the likes of Joe Bonamassa and British female star Joanne Shaw Taylor but it also doesn’t quite hit the big numbers that you almost find yourself willing to hear.

John Hiatt, The Terms Of My Surrender. Album Review. full post

(402 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Gary Edward Jones, The Cabinet Maker. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

You can listen to some people play live and know that the studio will not be as kind too them as what they sound like as they do in the raw, then there a select few that just fill the room with their life, their presence that every single piece of the being comes out and the seemingly random moments just become something so believable, so authentic and discerning that the microphone just wants them to play all night. Such is the emotion that a listener will get when they listen to Gary Edward Jones’ album The Cabinet Maker.

Gary Edward Jones, The Cabinet Maker. Album Review. full post

(398 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

The 286, A Victory for the Battalion 286. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are times when the closest analogy, the biggest compliment you can give a group is to compare it to something from the past.

For the 286 and their E.P A Victory for the Battalion 286, to associate it with a solid piece of music from one of the finest bands from the 1960s should be seen as an honour and whilst the music fits neatly in the Power Pop arena, the E.P. goes beyond that and goes straight into the natural limelight afforded the heavily under rated band The Small Faces and the physical expanse that sits in the album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake.

The 286, A Victory for the Battalion 286. E.P. Review. full post

(399 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Glow Boys, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Shaun Stanley, James Bray.

When Jack comes home carrying a Primark bag, Chris knows that Jack has got something on his mind; that their blossoming relationship, which has just gone through a civil partnership, may be in trouble. Is it another man, the problems of 21st Century living in which all are equal, all struggling along at the bottom due to the actions of Government and the way they have handled certain economic practises or quite simply that the need to express an artistic side, even if it means showing a bit of bottom as a male stripper, is enough for Jack to come home carrying home some exotic clothes.

Glow Boys, Theatre Review. Queertet 2014. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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