Matt Andersen – House to House
Sonic Records – 4 March 2022
Canadian Matt Andersen has built a reputation as an electric blues powerhouse. Still, with the release of House to House, his ninth studio album, we find him embracing a stripped back acoustic sound and delivering songs that explore what happens between the spaces—in other words, not overwhelming the listener with volume but allowing the songs a place to breathe and to reveal themselves more subtly.
Undoubtedly, the pandemic will have played a part in this direction, with Andersen out of social distancing necessity laying down these tracks at his Nova Scotia home studio, solo and live-off-the-floor without overdubs. But dig into this material, and you have to wonder, is there more to it than a simple choice of sonics? These songs have a deep connection; they appear pulled from the same well of real-life turbulence that, ironically, invests them with as much power and bite as anything this artist has previously recorded.
‘Other Side Of Goodbye’ is about as stripped back and laid bare as it is possible for a recording to get. The amazing thing is how Andersen is doing so much with so little. This is simply a voice and acoustic guitar but the raw ingredients of the piece, captured in the moment where the singer confesses to pretending he doesn’t “miss you more every day,” are epic and widescreen in their impact. A brave face kind of song that shows a bit of muscle in its intent to stare down the hurt.
There is a thread of separation and rebuilding running across the album; in ‘Looking Back At You’ the singer calls into the wind for the return of someone long gone, he is skimming stones and at a loss, which marries to the armchair picking of the acoustic setting exactly right.
For someone known for volume and electric punch, there is delightfully delicate guitar picking here. None of the limited chord strummings you often get on unplugged style sets; there are many textures on display in this playing, and thanks to the raw subject matter flowing within, there is solid depth lying beneath, as each song offers a chance to dig in deeper.
There are moments of elevation too, ‘Time For The Wicked’ has a touch of the church gospel in the infectious backing vocals. That vibe returns on the album’s closer, a version of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘People Get Ready’ that wrings out every last drop of soul this classic song possesses.
Furthermore, ‘Burning Lights’ is a positively jaunty old world style travelling blues tune. Still, essentially, with ‘House To House,’ it always comes back to that underlying trauma – The pain and hurt that these songs are working through, matched with the determination expressed to see the light again on the other side. This is expressed most directly on ‘See This Through,’ the album centrepiece, with the hook line “even if we have to bleed, I know that we will see this through.”
Ultimately, what you have here is the classic acoustic blues template alive and kicking because the source comes from a fundamentally real and dark place.
House to House is out now. Order here.