Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Like the well timed bus that comes just as the rain starts to pour down or the moment when they person you have harboured a crush on for years tells you that they have always been in love with you; Mike Oldfield’s latest album, Man On The Rocks, provides the little ray of sunshine in a day that can be filled with every aspect of grey imaginable.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are very few things as stirring as someone who wears their Celtic heart firmly upon their tartan sleeve. The heartache and pride of a thousand and more years history, the memory of water being distilled and savoured as if the most precious thing on Earth and the sound of a fiddle being weaved gently into the still night air, only to be heard by the faithful like a rallying call to mourn those lost and celebrate life in the mist and midst of Brigadoon. Such is the power of Emily Smith’s latest album Echoes, that Brigadoon is only a memory away.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There has always been an independent spirit that runs through Scotland, no matter the current discussions that are being fought over on the line that separates the Saltire and the cross of St. George, the music sits proudly in the veins of all who either live North of Carlisle or who have grown up admiring it, the thought of the Highland mist, the taste of Scotch whisky hanging round like the rallying call from the Clans. Add though the touch of the Americana to the music, the big band scene, the brandy cask with 40 year old Balvenie shaking hands and embracing its Bourbon cousin Jack Daniels and seeing the heady mix meld into a debut album by the Red Pine Timber Company that is as sturdy as Scottish hospitality and as creative as the carvings of Mount Rushmore seen in pure sunshine.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 91/2/10
Like a monster rising out of the shadowy depths, the colossus and the titanic seem to feed on the range of emotions given off by all who come into contact with it. However there is one giant from behind the former Iron Curtain that could put The Green Knight of Arthurian legend or the flawed destroyer of Grendel to shame.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9½ /10
The third album by The Riotous Brothers, The Tree, starts like a feeling of pure exhilaration and ends up with you wanting to weep for all the right reasons and take each song to your heart. If an album can really take you to places that you cannot go to in your physical life then this is the same sensation you might get when you read Wuthering Heights, Far from The Madding Crowd, Moby Dick or Edward Rutherford’s Sarum for the first time in the quiet slumber of deep forest surrounded by the dying embers of a perfect summer’s day.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Imagine being able to stand right next to Concorde as its starts its engines, or being inside a military helicopter flying over hostile territory whilst the likes of Candlemass are performing inside…then turn it up a notch and add some great imagery from some very interesting and cool lyrics and the result is Maltese Doom Metal band Nomad Son and their exceptional album The Darkening.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Everyone always asks for proof, or at least they should, when being presented with a fact or piece of information. However The Proof is there for listening to when it comes to Paul Cox, Roger Cotton, Mike Summerland, Nigel Hardy and Peter Stroud, the proof is not just a satisfactory edible pudding but it is five course meal with additional toppings that deserves the best chef to present it.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The band’s facebook page betrays it all. There is no pomp, ceremony, ritual ego to be found; just a simple statement tucked away in corner, hiding in plain sight, four words, four simple words that reveal the ethic behind the five members of Maltese band The Crowns…It’s about the music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
No matter where you go in the world, the sound of music is always to be heard somewhere. It might not be the music you are used to hearing, it might even be the sound of nature at its creative brilliant best adding the backdrop to your day or holiday; whichever way you find music, if it’s good it will stay with you always.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Behind the oblique, somewhere in hiding in the shadows and the painted references to the black and white world of Folk music stands Marissa Nadler.
Ms. Nadler’s sixth studio album follows the same unique path that she has ploughed all her career. Intelligent and heartfelt lyrics with a point wrapped up in the enigma of the feeling of enforced solitude, the loneliness that the brave and inspired crave but coming out just enough to spread a tale or two of spell binding quality before shutting the door completely.