Matt Andersen

Sometimes I am actually shocked by the power and depth in Matt Andersen’s voice. He has a huge and soul-tinged bellow and on the opening track ‘I Lost My Way’ mixing Blues, Soul and even a reggae skank to the rhythms he is sounding better and more confident than ever.The little dub section at the end makes the track complete and I would say that it may be the best thing he has done so far.

The second number here ‘My Last Day’ continues the feel of the opener with a great Hammond from Ross Billard. It is only when you listen closely to the lyrics that you get a sense of unease – very dark and seemingly quite at odd with the music but a fine number nonetheless.

This is all so much more confident and fresh sounding from a man who has won awards and sold over 30,000 albums as an independent but he has some fine players around him and writing with the likes of Joel Plaskett and Ryan Hugman seems to have brought the best in his writing as well as his singing and playing.

Straying into a country vein on ‘So Easy’ his big voice softens and he puts the song over with real grace alongside Paul Rigby’s pedal steel and then the title track brings us back to the big soul sound sounding like something that Little Feat would have been proud of.
‘Alberta Gold’ strays into Tom Petty territory while ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ shows that he can write a great love ballad too.
Everywhere on the album you find little gems and belting numbers that the man fills with that great voice and a superb production by Steve Berlin but none better than ‘Drift Away’ which needs a big vocal to carry the song and a sympathetic orchestration and production to avoid taking away from the song.

I think a lot of people have been waiting for Matt to really hit one out of the park and on this one he has all the right elements in place to allow him to perform – this is brilliant.