Erja Lyytinen, The Sky Is Crying. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One of the being alive in the 21st Century is finding more and more music in which to take a certain degree of delight in. Not only in the extravagantly opulent amount of new songs paraded by people with something extraordinary fighting in their soul, the ones that refuse to lay down and take a metaphorical punching from successive people underestimating their age, their attitude, stance or particular opinion on a subject, but also in the fact that never before has so much been available from every decade, every century in which the combination of right tones, breathes and flickering beauty has been captured.

Erja Lyytinen, The Sky Is Crying. Album Review. full post

(542 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Modest Midget, Crysis. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Crisis! What Crisis? It may as well be the rallying call to what could at times be perceived as a beleaguered music industry, under pressure to constantly deliver in many cases the same sterile underwhelming stereotypical crass commercialism and in which makes the two ends of the spectrum just as much at fault as those who queue up and proclaiming it’s always been their dream to be a singer; possibly having had that dream since the first read that any of the many so called talent shows were going to be in town. On one side you have that, run by people who seem hell bent to destroy music from television’s side and then you have the likes of Bono and U2 giving their music away for nothing, well aside from the hefty cheque from online music fronts that is.

Modest Midget, Crysis. Album Review. full post

(499 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

Grant Nicholas, Yorktown Heights. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

You don’t have to go to Yorktown to hit the heights but to record a solo album full of instantly enjoyable songs, of tracks in which pathos, regret and hope go arm in arm and shove with purpose and some undisguised personal violence at the imagery of the past, then perhaps Yorktown Heights is the place in which solitude and rememberance are two adjoining emotions with a clear view of a possible future that lays ahead.

Grant Nicholas, Yorktown Heights. Album Review. full post

(437 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Mask Of Tragedy. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Philip Olivier, Samuel West, Alisdair Simpson, Russell Bentley, Tim Treloar, Emily Tucker.

Heroes, true heroes, those that seek no recompense for their actions in saving someone’s life and see no honour in reminding others what they have done for them in the past are so rare, so infrequent; that it is hardly surprising that tales of epic valour seems to be steeped in antiquity and legend. For those in ancient Greece, tales of heroes were what gave the collection of disparate nations and its people hope in times of war, pestilence and the invention of Greek comedy and one of its Godfathers, Aristophanes.

Doctor Who: The Mask Of Tragedy. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

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

Luftrausers (PS Vita), Game Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5 out of 10

Luftrausers is a side scrolling arcade aerial combat dogfighting game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita and PS3. The game started out life as a popular Flash game called Luftrauser in 2011 before gradually being redefined and having new content built on top of it in between other projects Vlambeer were working on at the time to substantially improve the overall experience.

Luftrausers (PS Vita), Game Review. full post

(1598 words, estimated 6:24 mins reading time)

New Tricks: In Vino Veritas. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Niamh Cusack, Phil Davis, Jack Ellis, Tom Georgeson, Pinar Ogun, Jan Knightley, Adam Astill, Alan Bayer.

A bottle of wine or champagne, for those who pay scant regards to such things, somehow can drive a person to more obsessive behaviour, can cause a person to murder and be underhand more so perhaps that religion, politics and for the promise of love from a calculating, cold beauty could ever manage to be.

New Tricks: In Vino Veritas. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

Sunjay. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is one way to describe the first aural sensation in which the ears hear the musical tones of Sunjay Brayne, one tiny word in which holds a myriad of thoughts, a single utterance in which musical confusion is dispelled and waved away like a fine mist is dispelled by the action of a fan, it is just simply marvellous.

Sunjay. Album Review. full post

(483 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Caretaker. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Elis George, Edward Harrison, Nigel Betts, Andy Giles, Nanya Campbell, Joshua Warner-Campbell, Oliver Barry-Brook, Ramone Morgan, Winston Ellis, Gracy Goldman, Diana Katis, Jimmy Vee, Chris Addison.

Coal Hill School in the centre of the East End of London seems to be the centre of the known universe when it comes to the stories concerning The Doctor and his fascination/exasperation for his favourite species and their planet. So much so that not only could the Doctor could be seen as the custodian of Humanity’s existence but when the time comes, he cannot keep away from the school in which some of his most memorable companions and perhaps pivotal moments have taken root. The Caretaker he has been and seems to relish in being.

Doctor Who: The Caretaker. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

A Most Wanted Man, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Willem Dafoe, Daniel Brühl Homayoun Ershadi, Mehdi Dehbi, Nina Hoss, Vicky Krieps, Kostja Ullmann, Franz Hartwig, Martin Wuttke, Vedet Erincin, Rainer Brook, Derya Alabora, Tamir Yigit, Herbert Grönemeyer, Georg Ebinal, Bernhard Schütz, Jessica Joffe, Ursina Lardi, Corinna Kropiunig, Max Volkert Martens, Uwe Dag Berlin, René Lay.

A Most Wanted Man, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool. full post

(683 words, estimated 2:44 mins reading time)

Black Diamond, THE EP, Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are some things in life that should come with a cautionary sign attached them. Not the dangerous ones in which various pictures are plastered over the front of packaging and perforated with Government Surgeon General advice, not the kind in which Tipper Gore managed to spring load and foster fear over the corruption of young American minds and not the imaginary ones that should be written in paint over the front of polling stations which proclaim the words, Governments can seriously cause you stress but the ones that state loud and proud, “This C.D. will change the way you look at local music” or “Stop watching television, get out there and listen to this band, they will make you smile harder than rhinoceros armed with a gun and a poacher cowering on its knees.”

Black Diamond, THE EP, Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)