Tag Archives: album review

Cult Of The Fox, Angelsbane. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If you have to join a out of the ordinary following, then music has all the power it needs to make that following gather pace in such a way than the rather obtuse word trendy can express. This year has seen the continent of Europe really come of age when it comes to Heavy Metal, outshining almost all, with a couple of notable exceptions, that the natural homes of the U.K. and North America could hope to match and more so in the Scandinavian heartlands. Swedish Heavy Metal group Cult of the Fox greatly add to this growing reputation with their album Angelsbane.

Cult Of The Fox, Angelsbane. Album Review. full post

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

Sammy Hagar, Sammy Hagar & Friends. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

After four decades thrilling fans and audiences alike as one of the great American rock entertainers, Sammy Hagar has recorded new tracks and put a Hagar-like slant on a couple of absolute towering monsters  in which the devotees and aficionados will be knocking themselves out for to have as part of the collection. After great and deserved success with bands such as the enormous fantastic Chickenfoot and the iconic Van Halen, Sammy Hagar & Friends relishes in the man’s ability and undoubted charisma to showcase that even now he is still one of the top draws of rock’s glittering establishment.

Sammy Hagar, Sammy Hagar & Friends. Album Review. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Jonny Lang, Fight For My Soul. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Some albums jump straight out at you from the opening note and make you sit down in almost startled amazement. In Jonny Lang’s first album for seven years, the tormenting and incredible sound that encapsulates Fight For My Soul, the feeling of bewildered admiration is compounded by thought of time having passed by.

Jonny Lang, Fight For My Soul. Album Review. full post

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

Mojo Makers, Wait Till The Morning. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The comparisons that will inevitably follow when Wait Till The Morning, the new album by the superb Mojo Makers, is released or even perhaps unleashed would be a better term with anything that the Midland’s own Led Zeppelin recorded should be disregarded  and put away as early as possible. Not for the reason that many might think, those that believe the genre stopped being of any significance when Led Zeppelin stopped making new music, but for the fact that in Wail Till The Morning is far and away more interesting a caged animal than almost anything the Midland band put together.

Mojo Makers, Wait Till The Morning. Album Review. full post

(402 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Annihilator, Feast. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Time moves on and the brilliance of a band that came to the forefront of their country’s contribution to the Heavy Metal/Thrash genre seems to have finally come to a stuttering halt and whilst not completely disintegrating into fragments just yet, the signs are ominously there. For Annihilator and Jeff Waters in particular, the premiere of Canadian Metal, the band that bought out some illuminating and defining classics in their time, have bought out their 14th studio album, Feast, and it is regretfully anything but.

Annihilator, Feast. Album Review. full post

(443 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Mike Zito & The Wheel. Gone To Texas. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The concept of confessional poetry isn’t a new one, especially in The United States where it flourished under auspicious talent, weighty hearts and minds that saw the acknowledgment of their craft being greeted as an affirmation of genuine skill and endeavour. As Mike Zito readily admits; his new album with The Wheel, the brutally honest and gorgeous Gone To Texas, is an album in which he pays homage to the Lone Star State, the state that he says saved his life. It might not be in the same vein as poetic luminaries such as Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath or Allen Ginsberg but the sentiment is there, this is a musician shaking his soul loose and willingly, ungrudgingly revealing all.

Mike Zito & The Wheel. Gone To Texas. Album Review. full post

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

Samantha Fish, Black Wind Howlin’. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If you want revolution, if the idea of the start of an uprising in the hearts of a specific music genre is something that takes your fancy then Samantha Fish’s latest offering to the mass public is sure to be more wrecking than a person with a 1000 pound metal ball on the end of a crane in a scrap yard could ever hope to achieve. Black Wind Howlin’ cuts through the storms, slices past the obstacles placed in its way and heads over the Atlantic in a flurry of musical fury and the result is utter brilliance.

Samantha Fish, Black Wind Howlin’. Album Review. full post

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

Cyril Neville, Magic Honey. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If music be the food of love, then let Cyril Neville forever play on. Cyril Neville is a music legend, a man who makes music sound as deliciously entertaining as it should be heard and whose latest album, Magic Honey, has all the ingredients of a mix of songs that have been well prepared and seasoned to enjoy in only way that the man can.

Cyril Neville, Magic Honey. Album Review. full post

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

Michael Monroe, Horns And Halos. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Recording an album is only really as hard or as difficult as the artist wants it to be. There is of course the pain of opening the soul up so far that it allows others who have no connection to the musician, in the act of revealing one’s life, no matter how sincere the writing or score is, what is demanding and tiring. It can also be a blessing, a cathartic episode in which the musician just shows to the awaiting audience that what they know is at the end of the day, not all they know. Some will struggle to keep the fine line of privacy and public awareness separate, others embrace it. Michael Monroe, the man who certainly made Hanoi Rocks is one such individual who opens his heart and his latest album, Horns and Halos, is an absolute belter.

Michael Monroe, Horns And Halos. Album Review. full post

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

The Bad Shepherds, Mud, Blood And Beer. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are cover versions and then there are real humdingers, songs that have been given such a new lease of life that they buzz with a new purpose that thrills the musical soul. Many musicians and boy bands can recreate the sound of a much loved anthem, the pop classic, the standard bearer of a generation who knew the song inside out and adored it but somehow it gets rehashed by the latest so called boy band and the song somehow loses its power. Then there are The Bad Shepherds and the incredible folk twist they bring to music which illuminates that power and gives it a new meaning.

The Bad Shepherds, Mud, Blood And Beer. Album Review. full post

(463 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)