Tag Archives: album review

Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back/ And I’ll Scratch Yours. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When Peter Gabriel released Scratch My Back in 2010, cover versions performed by an artist, which normally has the feel of creativity poverty and a terrible aching of lack of substance, was turned on its head and given fresh, bold and enjoyable lease of life.

The original idea for artists to return the favour and put as much spin as they could on the gabrielesque lyrics may have taken longer than the project intended but time is something that never seems to worry the man who has thrilled generations of fans over and over again. What matters is the final product, the accumulation of ideas and threads into one neat and absorbing packaging. Now Scratch My Back has its companion, the excellent and rightly titled And I’ll Scratch Yours. 

Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back/ And I’ll Scratch Yours. Album Review. full post

(371 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Alun Parry, When The Sunlight Shines. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The ordinary and those that are extraordinary, the everyday and uncommon, the heroes that take on the unjust, the one –sided discriminatory and those that revel in the prejudicial and underhanded are all there somewhere within the heart and wonderfully lyrical ballads of Liverpool’s Alun Parry and perhaps never more so in his first album in far too long, When The Sunlight Shines.

Alun Parry, When The Sunlight Shines. Album Review. full post

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

Manic Street Preachers, Rewind The Film. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Rage and anger are very frustrating animals, in some it becomes lost in a rant that is fuelled by jealousy and is unattractive to see portrayed or seen. In many though the anger grinds under the surface, its reflection on society growing until the bubble bursts and comes pouring out, not in a diatribe of mixed, sometimes reactionary anguish but in a form of social belief, quiet fury that is softly spoken and carrying perhaps the biggest sack of wrath. For fury and change never seems to be misplaced in the anger of a patient man.

Manic Street Preachers, Rewind The Film. Album Review. full post

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

London Grammar, If You Wait. Album Review.

Liverpool sound and vision Rating * * * *

Nottingham has changed in the last 30 years; some parts may be unrecognisable to those who first made their way to the city and outlying areas at the start of the 1980s in the hope of catching their favourite bands perform in some of the town’s more interesting venues and even more salubrious settings. The surface may have changed, even become more welcoming in some places as Nottingham realises it has a duty to the next generation of its young and not be the hotbed of tourism mania in which to grab the next pound from unsuspecting sightseers and day-trippers

London Grammar, If You Wait. Album Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Dreadzone, Escapades. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Twenty years after their first release, the band that the great John Peel championed with passion, Dreadzone have released their latest opus Escapades and the result is something that perhaps the great man would no doubt have raved about for many years to come.

Not only is the usual hybrid of Reggae and hard Folk fused with the electronic-dub very much in evidence throughout this articulate and thoughtful album but its charm lies with the appreciation of memory, of battles fought, wrongs righted and knowing still that the war is from over, there are still far too many injustices to take care of. Dreadzone capture the antagonism of the age superbly, the ever creeping anger at the way many have become marginalised just for being who they are whilst others revel in the misery caused.

Dreadzone, Escapades. Album Review. full post

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

Satyricon, Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Some groups need no introduction; the pulsating power that seeps out of every pore smacks with such intensity that Krakatoa hangs its head in shame for causing a whimpering fuss. For Satyricon, the power is magnified by a considerable factor, as if the island that blew itself apart had dug deep into the Earth’s core and found a big brother to stand behind it.

Satyricon, Album Review. full post

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

Snakecharmer, Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For an album, a piece of recording history, to hold so much individual and seemingly disparate talent and turn it into a record such wealth and barnstorming enjoyment is either locked away in the recesses of the Rock music fan’s mind, ready to be spieled out in a lull of conversation in a pub one Friday night or actually physically existing in the form of Snakecharmer’s self-titled and cracking debut album.

Snakecharmer, Album Review. full post

(410 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Rovo And System 7, Phoenix Rising. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Sometimes coming across a group or project that you don’t know about can be cathartic for the soul, for it reminds you of why you fell desperately in love with the chosen genre in the first place.  With enough nods to the intricate genius of Mike Oldfield, the eclectic progressive Jazz of groups such as Brand X, the majesty of Pink Floyd and a whole host of Progressive rock bands entwined with an art house feel, Phoenix Rising, an album of colossal combination by Rovo and System 7, is an album that will blow any pre-conceptions the listener may have when it comes to the world of Japanese Progressive Rock.

Rovo And System 7, Phoenix Rising. Album Review. full post

(394 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Black Spiders, This Savage Land. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Just when all hope seemed lost, when the chips weren’t just down, they had been fried, assaulted by fat and consumed with all the gourmet finery available to those in a busy city centre on a Saturday night out, the British Heavy Rock brigade gets the shot in the arm it has craved since Black Sabbath’s phenomenal album 13 was released. Sheffield’s Black Spiders fit the bill perfectly as one of Britain’s Rocks finest as they survey the wreckage that the Metal scene has become and This Savage Land is more than grateful.

Black Spiders, This Savage Land. Album Review. full post

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

Touchstone, Oceans Of Time. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The world may be perpetually on the brink of meltdown as it struggles from one crisis to another with little room to take a breath before the next impeding disaster needs patching up or perhaps covering up; however whilst there are groups such as Touchstone who can fill the emptiness that the soul can feel when living through times such as we do, then there is always a glimmer of hope that a bleak day can have some element of brightness to it.

Touchstone, Oceans Of Time. Album Review. full post

(394 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)