Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is always good to find that a group that have managed to worm their way into your collection, that have produced eloquently driven pop songs and the odd anthem pleaser, still retain the power to bring about the sentiment of beauty and the sensation of enjoyment four albums down the line, it should come as no surprise though when that band is The Feeling.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The beat may well be redundant in many cases, squeezed to death between opinion and the lethargy to look beyond the obvious in terms of getting a particular voice across, but it lives on, perhaps in the shadows and forced to seek solace in an overcrowded music room but nevertheless when it finds an audience it breathes, grows strong and infects the listener to the point where most people cannot help but jive and swing as if life was going to last forever.
Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * *
It is the simplicity of the message that often carries across a joy in performance caught for posterity, a simple measure of a well delivered story finding an ear of appreciation into which a meaning, a semblance of truth can be measured and gauged; it is in these stories of love, life and head on Folk music of an Antipodean nature that The James Brothers pursue as if running towards some great sunrise, some new dawn, in the distance.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
For all that the British like to imagine that they have more in common with their Southern European friends, that the heat that comes off the African plains and enthuses the life of those who call the Mediterranean home is more linked to their D.N.A, than anything that comes from the Northern reaches of Europe, the blood of Scandinavia, it only takes a listen to the charms of groups such as Boreas to understand just how much that position is reversed.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Star-crossed and ill-fated lovers are all the rage in Verona, the Italian home and setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a place of splendour and magnificence, where a first kiss is as nearly as good as a first listen and like Romeo and Juliet’s temptations and maddening joy, everything is made better by the anxious feel of My Last Day to calm all tensions.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Swansea has perhaps never felt so vibrant as it has in the last decade, the emergence, the phoenix like quality that makes the city stand in lofty affection by those who have visited it, the resilience of its people and the towering memory of a poet whose words stalk the South Wales valleys and waters all combine to make the second city of the country feel first class and cool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The trouble is with Governments is that they never learn, that they always find a way to delve just that little deeper into the widening foundry of desperation and push more people in, to make the general population just that little more compliant by suggesting the two words that nobody ever picks upon, “You next”.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
When an album can grab the listener’s attention at four in the morning, when the dust of the day has settled upon layer upon layer and yet with gratifying force can shake it off like a volcano shedding years of pressure in one gigantic explosion and the sleep that you thought needed is replaced by the urge to rage, pound and live.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
At times it feels as though there has been a large glass ceiling put between what has happened before and the 21st Century bands trying to break through and at least assert some measure of modern day experience and the seeking of truth in every music genre across the board.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are not many bands or artists who would be comfortable with releasing a new set of songs in the same box as 20 of their previous hits and instantly recognisable songs, the pressure of comparison, of easily accessed contrast is perhaps a release too far for most groups to skip round. Having a best of is all right, especially if it does introduce a newer crowd to the table and have them bathing in what is effectively some of the great songs of the genre; but to put them alongside in the same packaging with a brand new experience, that perhaps is taking the point of dedication too far. Not for the Bellamy Brothers though as their new and old recording of 40 Years :The Album attests.