Category Archives: Music

Flook: Sanju. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Integrity is arguably the pinnacle of human interaction we seek, to be taken at one’s word, and to know that the person you are speaking to doesn’t don’t your word, your intention, or your meaning; it is the reliability of consistent truth, the honour of not mincing words…never mind success, never mind riches and pride, to be virtuous in both praise and criticism is the height of being human.

David Lee Roth: The Warner Recordings1985-1994. Box Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

David Lee Roth - The Warner Recordings (1985-1994) [New CD] Boxed Set - Picture 2 of 2

There are frontmen and women, and there are icons, the latter being the special kind which do more than just perform and maintain the relationship between band and the audience, they spread a musical infection which borders on delirium, they find a way to tap in to the fever and the euphoria of the occasion that sends waves of chaos across the largest venue, the stadium, or even the nestled and modest local scene and hang out; they are more than the face of the band, the voice of the moment, they are the larger than life symbol that a generation clings to as they search for expression and meaning.

Dorothy Bird: Dream With Me. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We have become separated by the noise, the disconnection between former friends, allies, even family members has come about through a variety of divisive factors, each amplified to a point and a peak where opinion overrides fact and detail, the emotion of our loss is magnified by the constant barrage of updates, one-sided statements, and the feeling of information to our inner circle…but it doesn’t have to be that way, we can, rather than create war with each other and throw constant blows of verbal statistics, dream together, use our imagination to invent, design, and give hope where others lay waste.

STUD: Under Silver Sky. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Under Silver Sky we find a meaning, the land below reflecting in the glow of precious colours, far and away from the bleak dark hues that dog us, unscorched by the orange and yellows of a blistering sun; that meaning is that of tranquil repose, of a calm composed of serenity and possibility, and one to whom the sound of melodic rock is always a welcome addition.

Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The world is full of sound bites and opinions, and they are often delivered with the kind of sickly tone that borders on nauseating and covets the attention of condescending; it is almost as we have lost the crucial ability to not only think true, but to express it in a way that is unique, the often repeated mantras somehow finding a way to remain in the public vocabulary as if insisted upon by some second rate George Orwell.

John Lodge: Love Conquers All. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Love Conquers All

One of the heroes of the original Birmingham music scene, a man to whom was part of the classic line up of one of the Midland’s most progressive voices in the flowering 60s, has been strangely absent from the studio; admittedly Time as is always argued, plays a part in such things, but in honoured circumstances the audience is once more freely given access to one of The Moody Blues most inner thoughts, and it is with special delight that Love Conquers All marks the return of John Lodge to the forefront of the music fan’s mind.

The Plague: The Divided States of Hysteria. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

A house divided does not stand, this lesson of history is one that rarely is learnt because we don’t understand the basic concept of the self, that the various vagrancies of the various personalities within us pull at our senses and demand not unity of spirit, but a kind of hysterical split, a fragmentation of the soul.

Self-reflection in society starts from the individual, and between mania and frenzy, and that of composed serene relief, of the enthusiasm of tranquil balance with humanity, and when we can see the rage and the fear, the chaos in ourselves we measure the equilibrium to The Divided States of Hysteria and hopefully find a truth that leads to a kind of enlightenment.

Dream Theater: Parasomnia. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

ALBUM REVIEW: Parasomnia - Dream Theater - Distorted Sound Magazine

In true fashion afforded those who find the resilience and the love to return to a former position of power, the reintroduction of Mike Portnoy to the realm of Dream Theater must feel like a dream come true, the only effects of Parasomnia in this case being one of united fulfilment, and sheer adoration as the music from one of the finest examples of Neo-Progressive Metal/Rock asserts its position and flexes a series of muscles designed to illuminate, reestablish order, and whilst Mike Mangini’s tenure in the drums overlapped with some intensely exciting albums, the sense of excitement in the returning Mike Portnoy is almost inflammable, combustible, fiercely and brilliantly overwhelming.

Andy Fairweather Low: The Invisible Bluesman. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Andy Fairweather Low – Sweet Soulful Music

One thing Andy Fairweather Low is not, is invisible, even if the man himself has declared it so with a hopeful tongue in cheek side glance at the audience, for sheer presence does not come from being at the front of the stage always in the limelight of the employer of the day, but what you have brought to music across the decades; and in that respect alone, the man who led Amen Corner to four successive top ten places in the U.K. charts with Bend Me, Shape Me, High In The Sky, the phenomenal (If Paradise) Is Half As Nice, and Hello Susie, is not invisible, but an illumination.

Dave Potter & Retro Groove: Retro Grove 2. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Arguably for the vast majority of music lovers, the drummer is an integral part of the sound captured in the studio or live on stage, and yet we have the vision of the one sat behind cymbals and skins as being this omnipotent being shrouded by the dry ice and only appearing like some figure out of the gloom as they are called upon to acknowledge the appreciation of the whole, and rarely for their individual skill and proficiency.