Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Dancing cheek to cheek maybe fun, singing from the same spread sheet can bring some closer together but a little Heart To Heart can soothe oceans of troubled waters and build bridges where none thought were possible to erect due to geographical differences and political contrasts. A discussion is not always about thrashing out anger and a Heart To Heart takes place when there is something to build, a pleasure of human emotion in which to keep sacred or the possibility of the new found admiration to which respect is earned and encouraged.
It is in this framing of encouragement that Liverpool’s Brian Bordello and Texas’ Occult Character have joined forces to release six songs in which the fostering of talent and expression is a cross Atlantic journey of beauty, one that which is not only memorable, but also dynamic, a place of the fertile breeding ground to where strangers can sit down around the camp fire and fine commonality, a heart to heart in which a spiritual love is expressed with the divinity of the soul.
The point of experiment is to see how far you can push your limits, of those around you and to see the result as a sense of purity, of purging the stilted and the undigested into the pit and finding the occasion in which the mind is lifted. For Brian Bordello and Occult Character, the minds of expression are already, and sincerely, open, and yet the compliment to each musician is executed with progressive intent, a punk attitude embracing the exploration of furthering and developing their stance.
Taking on three of the collaborated songs each, the split responsibility serves both musicians perfectly, without reneging on the point of individuality. Across the tracks Please Remember Me Baby, Shine On, Strange Flirtation Dance, Purple Wall, Talkin Bachman’s Warbler Blues and Pig F****r, a strange heady brew of magic is drunk, savoured and studied keenly, a mind opened further, a mind surveyed and mined for all possibilities, a true capturing of the Punk Progressive attitude to which all art should be.
Brian Bordello and Occult Character in each other have found a kindred spirit, and the result is explosive.
Ian D. Hall