Artist: Lorrie Matheson
Album: In Vein
Label: Saved by Radio   
Released: February 24th, 2009

Reviewed by Sarah Miller (Vancouver Correspondent)

This third solo album by Calgary singer-songwriter and self-described curmudgeon, Lorrie Matheson, is built around the idea that everything important in our lives- love, pain, demons, hope- eventually finds it’s way into our blood, hence the album title, In Vein.

Matheson has been a fixture in the Calgary music scene for a number of years now with stints in the roots band, National Dust, and a collaborative project with a former bandmate called the Thousandsticks Projects. As a solo artist, he has been a part of showcases like South by Southwest in Texas, North by Northeast in Toronto and the Western Canadian Music Awards.

In Vein was produced by fellow Calgarian Jay Crocker, and explores a wide range of influences from straight up pop-rock to New Orleans jazz to backwoods twang. While the songs are all solidly rooted in the singer-songwriter tradition, Matheson mixes in unique sounds to give each track a life of it’s own. ‘You Can Curse the Dark’ is a gently mournful lament that brings in elements of sixties beach band harmonies and psychadelic guitars. ‘Gone’ is a sparse and dark song inspired by a women’s shelter down the street from Matheson’s home, while the progressively chaotic ‘Another Seven Minutes (Shot to Hell)’ is drawn from the idea that smoking a cigarette takes an average of Seven Minutes.

Lorrie Matheson will be heading down to Texas later this month for SXSW, and fans can catch him at a show at The Railway Club in Vancouver in early May.

Track List:
A Hollow Wind
Falling Down Sober
Another Seven Minutes (Shot to Hell)
Down on the Main
Don’t Let This Living Kill You
You Can Curse the Dark
Blues from the Register Side
Gone
The Beautiful Bottle

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