Tag Archives: album review

Tinlin, Shade Of The Shadows. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Take the vocal harmony of Scottish Del Amitri when they are at their soulful best, combine elements of America’s Simon and Garfunkel and add the passion that certain songwriters can bring to their audience and the result you have is a superb album by Tinlin titled Shade Of The Shadows.

Tinlin are brothers Rolf and Alex Tinlin, with their vocal harmonies and soft gentle refrains, they make a proposition worth listening to with some wide eyed and overwhelming abandonment. The sound they combine alongside Stephanie Blood on cello on the songs In These Arms and Don’t Want To Sleep Alone, Jack Carrack on percussion and Eleanor Tinlin on cor anglais and oboe make this an album worth seeping yourself into.

Tinlin, Shade Of The Shadows. Album Review. full post

(341 words, 1 image, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

Beverly McClellan, Fear Nothing. Album Review.

Fear Nothing could just be an outstanding metaphor for Beverly McClellan’s life; the fact that she uses this inspiration as the title of her international debut album release shows not only how much she believes in her own mantra but also in the music that she has recorded.

American television programme The Voice may have given her national exposure but this is one woman whose work stretches back long before breaking a countrywide conscious with her very intelligent music and raw power in her sensual and honest bluesy voice.

Beverly McClellan, Fear Nothing. Album Review. full post

(409 words, 1 image, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Kiss, Monster. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

No matter what, the story of Kiss keeps going. Nearly 40 years down the line Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons continue to let this gargantuan behemoth draw breathe and thrill their millions of fans. For their 20th album release Monster, the ingredients that made them absolute show stoppers and musical entertainers are still there and it seems as if this Monster will not be tamed.

Kiss, Monster. Album Review. full post

(391 words, 1 image, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Beth Hart, Bang Bang Boom Boom. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It cannot just be by chance that music producer Kevin Shirley aligns himself with some of the most fascinating and brilliant people within modern blues and they don’t come much more fantastic than Beth Hart or her new album Bang Bang Boom Boom.

Following on from her collaboration with the man who makes blues seem effortless and instinctive, Joe Bonamassa, for the 2011 album Don’t Explain and her simply stunning album, 2010’s My California, Ms. Hart has once more come up with songs that are musically strong and reveal another layer to her virtuoso performances both as writer of intense feeling and also as a vocalist.  Her intonation and deep desire in her voice gets underneath your skin and tugs at every resistance you may possess until you give over to her demands.

Beth Hart, Bang Bang Boom Boom. Album Review. full post

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

Jeff Lynne, Long Wave. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In the years to come Birmingham City Council should and must erect a statue to the local lad who became one of its finest musicians and record producers. If they can put up a piece of modern art for the great comedian Tony Hancock then by beyond all reasonable doubt they should put one up of the equally excellent Jeff Lynne.

Jeff Lynne, Long Wave. Album Review. full post

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

Focus, Focus X. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One of the archetypical Progressive Rock bands and undoubtedly one of the finest to have come from mainland Europe, Focus, have come up trumps again with their brand new album Focus X.

Focus may be described as legendary; however there isn’t a word in existence to express how much they are revered, despite poor critical acclaim on some of their albums in the lean period of their tenure as one of Europe’s most important Prog bands. Since the group was resurrected for the Focus 8 album in 2002, their following has returned and so has the excitement of listening to this genuinely unique and fantastic band.

Focus, Focus X. Album Review. full post

(427 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Damien Dempsey, Almighty Love. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *****

There is no other way to describe the Irish singer Damien Dempsey than incredibly imposing in his natural gift of poetic words that shine like a beacon across from Dublin Bay and point out the injustice that still pervades across both countries that straddle the Irish Sea and imposing in his stature and honesty.

It is this talent, this raw, unflinching and thankfully untameable man that brings the songs of his life, that of the still forgotten people of that part of Ireland and the growing number of disposed and disenfranchised people beyond it which makes his new album, Almighty Love, such a remarkable and perfect statement.

Damien Dempsey, Almighty Love. Album Review. full post

(346 words, 1 image, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

Muse, The 2nd Law. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating ***

There comes a time in a groups, hopefully distinguished career, where a listener may stop and think, well that was good but it wasn’t really as awesome as everybody raved on and on about. That might be the case with Muse’s sixth album The 2nd Law.

One of the band’s great strengths over the last few albums is the absolute conviction that they have created something approaching unique, something nothing less than genuinely superb and out of this world. Even including Black Holes and Revelations into this equation, which after quite a few plays revealed an album that wasn’t quite up to scratch, full of pit falls and loosely tied together with some very appealing songs as Map of the Problematique and Invincible, it still suited the canon and the ways of Muse.

Muse, The 2nd Law. Album Review. full post

(448 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Bruce Foxton, Back in the Room. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating ****

For anyone, who in the last couple of years caught one of the original godfathers of modern music, Bruce Foxton, performing with Mark Brzezicki and Russell Hastings as part of the excellent From the Jam will point out, the man who put rock into roll is back and better than ever.

Bruce Foxton, Back in the Room. Album Review. full post

(372 words, 1 image, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

Tori Amos, Gold Dust. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *****

In 1992 an album was released by the name of Little Earthquakes and the impression it made on those who heard it turned the composer of the delicate and angst ridden tunes into at first a cult hero and then over the ensuing 20 years has turned her into an absolute legend. Tori Amos doesn’t sit still, not at her beloved piano and more importantly not in her life. Just a little over a year since she released her first foray into classical music, she has come out all guns blazing with the breathtaking Gold Dust.

Tori Amos, Gold Dust. Album Review. full post

(469 words, 1 image, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)