Tag Archives: album review

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.

Arrow Highway, Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Listening to music in the comfort of your own home is an enjoyable way to take in the thoughts and words of an artist, the soothe reassurance of what is familiar surrounding new music is tangible and concrete. Some albums though need the experience of being heard whilst you are out in the open, away from the confines of four walls and being urged to take the imagination by the hand and showing it a different way of life, an image to hang the music onto. This way of looking at music works wonderfully well especially when it is a pure and defined set of instrumentals as Mike Chylinski’s new project Arrow Highway.

Thom Morecroft, Moon Moon Shake It. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

If all roads lead to Rome, then does the River Mersey beckon with its delicate welcoming sound of its history and people and toss and crash of its deep blue water for musicians far and wide to take residence beside its shores and bring something of their talent and then infuse the artist’s natural gift with something solid, something incredible? Many it seems are called to Liverpool, countless are even chosen and the city of absolute culture embraces them, for Thom Morecroft, a man from the wilds of Shropshire, and his album Moon Moon Shake It, it seems that enticing wink from the Mersey has captured a man who will not let anything stand in his way.

Tragedian, Decimation. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Decimation, either a slaughter or annihilation, a battering of the senses in which the only chance you have of salvation is keep on playing the album until you work out exactly why the new album by German Power Metal band Tragedian seems so formidable.

Reuben Archer, Personal Sin. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Reuben Archer’s pedigree stands before him like an outstretched monument, adorned with the knowledge that it symbolises something extra, that little piece of musical ingenuity that many strive for but just fall short of. It also takes an incredible talent to pull the amount of superb guest musicians to perform on his debut solo album and when you have the supreme gift of genius as Magnum’s/Thunder’s Harry James, Status Quo’s John ‘Rhino’ Edwards, Neil Murray, the great Luke Morley and Paul Raymond on the album, then it’s not so much as a Personal Sin, but a statement of special intent.

Marcella Detroit, The Vehicle. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Albums come and go, pop stars appear and disappear with frightening regularity and yet the artist digs away at your soul with a kindness and sincerity that those who litter the charts of popularity can probably never hope to achieve. The artist stays in the listener’s heart and makes themselves at home forever. Even with a large distance in time between albums, what comes along can be thrilling, soulful and takes the listener on the next stage of their life hand in hand with them.

Robin Beck, Underneath. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

In days when the abhorrence of misogynistic verbal sexual barbarity seems to be making a very unwelcome and unpleasant come back, Robin Beck and her latest album Underneath shows that no matter how some might try, you just cannot keep a good woman down.

The Rides, Can’t Get Enough. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When one door closes on a the time of a supergroup, a window slides open somewhere with enough room for another to wiggle their way into the hearts of the music buying public’s affections. So one group stops, another all-star line-up is more than ready and extremely adept at keeping the music flowing and In The Rides, comprising of legendary musician Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills and Nash, Buffalo Springfield), the incomparable Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Blues and Rock survivor Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), the music flows on Can’t Get Enough as if being conducted by a master infront of the world’s finest orchestra.

Asking Alexandria, From Death To Destiny. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * *

With a crack of wandering displaced electricity, the imagined smell of discharged cordite hanging sheepishly in the air and the heavy anticipation flowing through the veins, the sound of Asking Alexandria’s latest album, From Death To Destiny, cautiously makes its way through the wires and detonates with a force of neutron star fading and its potency being slightly smothered with a well-used pillow.

Alela Diane, About Farewell. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

The name and music of Alela Diane might be lost on the vast majority of people in the U.K., in the same way that some of these isles more eclectic and diverse musicians might be mislaid or even missing from the American subconscious. It doesn’t mean they should be dismissed, it just means that the ocean that divides a common tongue is sometimes just that little too wide, too expansive for a great ship to traverse.