Lost Soul 2: Smigger’s Wrecked Head. Theatre Review. (2024). Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Paul Duckworth, Lindzi Germain, Michael Hawkins, Jennifer Hynes, Catherine Rice, Andrew Schofield, Lenny Wood.

Time may offer the dangling cries of surprising future in front of us, but it never truly prepares us for the rude awakening of change when it comes to becoming a parent, and then the drama of becoming a grandparent. It is in the shock of how our lives adjust in the face of age and new life that the alter of self-expression is diminished, it undergoes a transformation that in all honest so few of us are prepared for.

Lost Soul 2: Smigger’s Wrecked Head. Theatre Review. (2024). Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(360 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Lindsey Buckingham: 20th Century Lindsey. Box Set Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Lindsey Buckingham 20th Century Lindsey (CD) Box Set - Picture 1 of 1

To look back at what we achieved in the past and see it without blemish is a sign of arrogance that we can ill afford to entertain; to be humble and acknowledge that we could have taken a different approach is to understand that whilst we may be lauded by the fan, it is our own personal critic we should be aware of…no regrets, but justifiable frustration that perhaps the strength we looked for in that moment was indeed just the start, the prelude before the explosion of the sublime to come.

Lindsey Buckingham: 20th Century Lindsey. Box Set Review. full post

(487 words, 1 image, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Andrew J. Newall: My Lucky Charm. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We tend to think of the concept album as one that can be seminal, gargantuan in its outlook, full bodied in say the realms of Pink Floyd, Green Day, Jethro Tull, The Who, and even the magnificent aspirations of the smooth voice from R ‘n’ B and Soul’s Marvin Gaye in his undeniable classic What’s Going On, but we forget that at times the concept is more than just an anthem, a set of songs placed together to rock a stadium and declare, almost punk like, of the disaffection and destruction of a human soul in a theatrical sense, but it is also a celebration of an oral tradition; a bringing together the life of someone not in the public eye but one who is just as every bit the hero or heroine deserving a tale.

Andrew J. Newall: My Lucky Charm. Album Review. full post

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

Linda Moylan: The Fool. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The artist’s control is paramount when it comes to insisting that they do everything possible to complete the vision that they have played out in their head a thousand times, to deny the creator the image, the sound, the farsighted concept is to be seen surely as a crime against unique talent, as a complaint to The Fool who forbids and the Jester who rejects.

Linda Moylan: The Fool. Album Review. full post

(366 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Pete Lambert: I Told You A Story. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

People will tell you a story for two different reasons, one is to exact a sense of sympathy, the other is to inform and display understanding; however, your words are taken though in the end cannot be down to your expression and sense of truth, but in the way the recipient feels the tale resonates with their own experience or their belief in you.

Pete Lambert: I Told You A Story. Album Review. full post

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

Matyáš Namai: George Orwell’s 1984 – The Graphic Novel. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Few novels have captured the moment and the progression of thought and fear as with as much intelligence and succinctness of expression as George Orwell’s 1984.

There are even fewer writer’s to whom their name exemplifies a movement, whose sense of style and pain can evoke a feeling within the mind that the world is very wrong, that freedom has been eroded, that our lives have been forever erased, altered, lied to over and over again to the point where at times we argue amongst ourselves about an act misremembered in the belief that one person’s truth is another’s lie.

Matyáš Namai: George Orwell’s 1984 – The Graphic Novel. Book Review. full post

(458 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

McDonald & Dodds: Wedding Fever. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Claire Skinner, Victoria Hamilton, Jason Hughes, Bill Bailey, Richard Harrington, Esme Coy, Lucinda Dryzek, Holli Dempsey, Charlie Coombes, Piotr Baumann, Charlie Jones, Bhavik C. Pankhania, Misha Domadia, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Joy Richardson, Akshay Sharan,

To the non-romantic, or even those that care little for social construct surrounding over-priced and over exaggerated declarations of love that come with the almost hysterical belief tied in with the convention of Wedding Season, the abuse of want and need, the sense of installing jealousy in a setting where good will should flow is enough to put some over the edge, to see marriage not as a union, but as a chance to even the score.

McDonald & Dodds: Wedding Fever. Television Drama Review. full post

(451 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

The Georgia Thunderbolts: Rise Above It All. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Album artwork for Rise Above It All by The Georgia Thunderbolts

F.E.A.R. as an acronym works well in our current state of human existence, and yet most will see it as an instruction to turn tail, to quit when the going has not only gotten hard, but more challenging a period of instability and cruelty of spirit than perhaps we have faced in the last 80 years; instead the approach, which is just as difficult, even as testing, but ultimately more satisfying, is to rise and meet the gruelling tasks head on.

The Georgia Thunderbolts: Rise Above It All. Album Review. full post

(421 words, 1 image, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Danni Nicholls: Under The Neem Plum Tree. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Inspiration is such a gift that invariably the best kept preserves that we squirrel away in our minds come from those we are often closest to, in spiritual deed, in family pastimes.

Danni Nicholls exemplifies the almost delicate way in which a family’s influence during play can stimulate a love for certain kind of groove in the young, the experience introduced at an influential stage will bind them to the beauty, to the desire of exploring, changing, altering in style that which catches their ear; and in her wonderfully composed album, Under The Neem Plum Tree, Ms. Nicholls sharply focuses on the artistic inheritance handed down from her Grandmother and the songs that made the family sing with joy.

Danni Nicholls: Under The Neem Plum Tree. Album Review. full post

(365 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Vienna Blood: Mephisto Waltz. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Ration 9/10

Cast: Matthew Beard, Juergen Maurer, Luise von Finckh, Charlene McKenna, Amelia Bullmore, Conleth Hill, Raphael von Bargen, Josef Ellers, Simon Hatzl, Miriam Hie, Robert Reinagl, Leonie Benesch, Ulrike Beimpold, Maria Köstlinger, Johannes Zeiler, Johannes Zirner, Stipe Erceg, Murathan Muslu, Stefan Pohl, Tobias Resch, Hagen Dürre, Larissa Fuchs, Rainer Galke, Rainer Wöss, Harald Taschner, Andreas Lust.

There should be mandatory lessons in the science and application of psychiatry to all as they turn to an age where they could be found being used by the system, by the covert machinations of the state and by the narcissistic intent of those seeking an agenda in which, if pushed, could see those same young people sent to a war they had no idea they were signing up to.

Vienna Blood: Mephisto Waltz. Television Drama Review. full post

(538 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)