Written by: Dave Cantrell

Though we’re not quite sure which one’s Bocce and which one’s Bourbon, we do know that the collaboration that has created this rich body of warm, quirky, emotionally genuine pop-folk-rock is unsurpassed in the American canon of such songwriting. Like a Half Japanese that you could invite to your family’s Thanksgiving dinner (ie. being both charmingly polite and cleverly idiosyncratic enough to make your literary spinster Aunt Martha fall secretly in love), the work of these two distinct poetic voices has transcended genre while embracing the gist of everything that’s great about this country’s long singer-songwriter tradition. As we said in our review, “Nearly every track [on the duo’s retrospective compilation Bocce & Bourbon…], in one way or another, is the epitome of that expert troubadour’s blend.” So, it’s with some amount of pride that SEM presents the world preview of said album, a collection that bewitches as much as it amuses, gives pause as much as it unleashes joy, a kind of intaglio of human experience that engraves its lovingly quirky self on the very sheath of your heart. Behold…