Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Perhaps male pop heart throbs are hard to find. The teenage crush of many a young girl can disappear in the blink of an eye, they dissolve into the background and what was once fashionable and alluring is unrecognisable, both visually and aurally, in the years ahead. Such is the life of a teenage heart throb.

Following on from Out of My Hands, Morton Harket shows with his latest album Brother, that some 80s pop stars have and will fare better than many of the almost non-descript popular male acts and so called Boy-bands of the current generation will be able to claim.

Always one to write deep and meaningful heart felt lyrical messages for his fans and perhaps to silence the ghosts of critics long since having abandoned the quill and keyboard, Brother is an album of quality lyrics wrapped up in the type of album that you might have at once time steered clear from. There is nothing wrong with the thought of confessional writing or poetry, indeed some of it is the stuff of legends and far more captivating that the thought of some of the mindless words that gets passed off as lyrics that clutter up trendy radio stations on both sides of the Atlantic. In Brother, Morton Harket seems to be passing through the same territory as the greats of the profession; he opens up his heart and soul and asks of the listener to take a closer look, to take care of his words and to leave them standing carefree but acknowledged for the next listener to rummage around in.

There is no exceptional high, no rush of quivering excitement, nothing to cause the N.H.S. to start stock piling unwanted drugs to quell the heightened spirits…however what there is for the listener is emotion, pure and simple, unrelenting emotion and longing. Music that has been created with subtlety and feeling, of writing a love letter that doesn’t depend on the thrill of the chase but the slow tender walk across the sand dunes of time, music that Mr Harket’s voice captures in serious abundance.

From the opening track of Brother to the softly sung Whispering Heart, Heaven Cast and the exceptional significance that resides in the one way communication of First Man To The Grave, Morton Harket once more shows that lyrical writing is an art in which to derive much pleasure from and if in some way it offers a comfort, a place in which to remember a specific moment with somebody then that comfort is well worth the experience.  

Ian D. Hall