Megadeth, Super Collider. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Thirty years after Dave Mustaine was sacked by Metallica, it seems as if the crown prince of Thrash can finally look back on the intervening years and sit back and think to himself that somewhere along the line, he triumphed. Not that there was ever a final goal of that kind lurking between two of the big four of American Thrash Metal but the grip satisfaction that since 1992 Megadeth have had nine top-20 U.S. albums on the bounce must keep him going and if there is any legitimacy and heart in the American market, as well as here in the U.K., then Super Collider will make it the seemingly impossible 10.

Megadeth, Super Collider. Album Review. full post

(424 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Queensryche, Frequency Unknown. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Long live Queensryche…no matter which version you end up following. Due to a very public falling out there are now two versions of the group and the former lead vocalist of the original band, Geoff Tate, the man who made the lyrics sing as if pursued by hoards of irate angels robbed of their vocal cords, has returned with his version of this new Queensryche’s first album Frequency Unknown and that is where the confusion starts in earnest.

Queensryche, Frequency Unknown. Album Review. full post

(587 words, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Metallica, St. Anger. 10th Anniversary Retrospective.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

As Metallica’s St. Anger turns ten years old it is worth remembering that upon release it polarised views of critics and fans alike. There were those that admired the stark honesty that Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and especially vocalist James Hetfield tried to convey after many years away from the studio. For others it was a departure they couldn’t cope with, the hard beating disturbed heart that was evident throughout the metal beasts first four albums had at first been replaced by a radio friendly outlook that bought extra fans to the band but also grinded the teeth of those who had come to expect a blistering hardcore sound on any album and then the further departure as they went more commercial. Something was lost between …And Justice For All, the so called Black album, Load/Reload and then in 2003 the album that sounds as clear as mud, St Anger.

Metallica, St. Anger. 10th Anniversary Retrospective. full post

(801 words, estimated 3:12 mins reading time)

Susan Hedges, Faces Without Names. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Even after a couple of albums it is impossible to ignore the song-writing talent that lives and breathes in the very heart of Susan Hedges. She impossible not to love, a piece of Liverpool that might go unnoticed by the greater population of the country but in the city she calls home, that talented is appreciated and nurtured.

Susan Hedges, Faces Without Names. Album Review. full post

(373 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Jago And Litefoot, The Bellova Devil. Series One, Big Finish Audio.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Lisa Bowerman, Conrad Asquith, Toby Langworth, Duncan Wisbey, Stephen Thorne, Peter Silverleaf, Alex Mallinson.

When a dead body is found on the Circle Line on London’s Underground, it seems as if this could just be another death that the metropolis has seen another subject pass untimely away into the arms of Lady Morpheus’ elder sister Death.  Nothing that should concern two of London’s eminent amateur detectives, nothing out of the ordinary to vex the brain power of Professor Litefoot and his friend with the knack of finding himself either in debt to theatre productions or flustered with his use of alliteration which he uses to great and stunning effect.

Jago And Litefoot, The Bellova Devil. Series One, Big Finish Audio. full post

(520 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Walter Trout, Luther’s Blues. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

In modern day blues, anything really that fits neatly or even indirectly into the genre post the new Millennium, Walter Trout perhaps only stands behind the legendary Joe Bonamassa and Robert Cray in the queue of great Blues guitarists. His own course has been guided over the last few decades and like his previous album, Blues For The Modern Daze, Luther’s Blues will further enhance this musician’s already sky high reputation.

Walter Trout, Luther’s Blues. Album Review. full post

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

Y Kant Tori Read, 25th Anniversary Retrospective.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

When Genesis released their debut album, From Genesis to Revelation, the sales it received could have seen any of the labels that were around at the end of the 1960s keep the band at arms-length until they split up and left them bitter and forlorn musicians. Thankfully they were given time, their music given the space to find its own special way in the world. Roll on 20 years and the young Tori Amos, the woman who would go onto become of the biggest female acts of all time, was about to suffer the same fate with her debut album as part of the band with the same name, Y Kant Tori Read.

Y Kant Tori Read, 25th Anniversary Retrospective. full post

(806 words, estimated 3:13 mins reading time)

Failure (And other opportunities for non-linear success), Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

How many dreams or unfulfilled desires do you still have left in your life? One? A few? Maybe there is whole list of wishes, a whole grasping of seeds in which you hope will all germinate and take root. Every success then will be yours…life though doesn’t work that way and in amongst all those seeds you might miss the one that will flower as you chase them all.  Mary Pearson explores how not to succeed, in other words how to grasp Failure.

Failure (And other opportunities for non-linear success), Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(375 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Floating, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is a reason why the foundation of the country since the end of the Second World War is built upon the cornerstone, the epitome of decency that is the N.H.S. and it is down to doctors and nurses that put up with, laugh alongside, shed tears of agony, frustration and remorse in the midst of insurmountable daily pressure from the sick and the dying and from those trusted with its care who seem to want to destroy what makes the U.K. civilised.

Floating, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(378 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Ashbury Keys, Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Going back to the beginning of a band’s career can seem sometimes as if you are resurrecting a forgotten beast that’s been left to graze on green pastures for too long. In groups that have been part of your life seemingly forever, it’s a chance to wallow in glories, of half remembered gigs that you attended before they struck it big and the cost of going to see them became too expensive as more and more corporate claws wormed their way into the soul of the band. The music is a memory of mates long since buried or who have fallen by the way side as you move away promising to write but never quite finding the right time or the right words to tell them.

Ashbury Keys, Album Review. full post

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