Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Everybody always imagines they can write a hit. In the same way that at a party someone will corner an author and inform them that they always wanted to write a book, invariably the same people will tell a musician, that they too could have been the next David Bowie, the next pop sensation or rock god. The truth is, yes, they could have done, but they are looking at it the wrong way round, the telescope of expectancy is pointed at the green grass rather than the industrial landscape behind.
It is in the industrial that the dreamer, the artist and the poet learn the valuable lesson that not everything will appeal to the ear of others, that once, a glorious once you might get to envisage the rolling hills and gentle stream of fame that others have got lost in, but in the end, you have been good to your word and created something more impressive than a hit, you have created art.
The Bordellos understand that concept of art outlasting lustre, of the glory of inspiration over the three-minute fame addiction, and as always what they produce is immersed in truth rather than the kick of sentiment, and for that alone they are to be lauded as one of the great bands of Liverpool’s 21st century music renaissance.
The new double A-side release of David Bowie and Be My Maybe is such a case in point of quality and experience over the spectre of tantalising titbit, the sound of the underground taken deeper, into the realm where artists feverishly etch out the future, not content with making the now seem polished, they are happy to get their hands dirty in the mine of the future, experimenting with the unfashionable, readying themselves to produce a Venus de Milo in a world that still adores the caveman art.
Two very different songs – the laid-back introspection of David Bowie, and the jubilant passion of Be My Maybeshould, and in other hands wouldn’t, stand together in the same way, but in the mind of the artist the show is all about inclusion, of furthering the mind to its greatest potential, and if means exhibiting the dichotomy of life, the sorrow and the joy, the pain and the exuberance, then so be it. It isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t matter, what is significant is that the feeling and the heartfelt embrace it, those with souls hear the words and taste the embrace on offer.
Once more The Bordellos have chiselled their own sculpture and created artistic vision from their freedom.
Ian D. Hall