Album Details

• Artist: Lorrie Matheson
• Album: A Dime At A Time
• Label: Western Famine
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: Dennis Scanland on 2004-12-03
• Viewed: 77 times

Reviewing a friend's CD is probably, for me, one of the hardest things to do. With that said, I may be a bit biased towards Lorrie Matheson's latest disc, A Dime At A Time. This is the second (third if you count the limited print EP last year) outing from the Calgarian and probably some of his most personal songwriting to date. The album starts out with the killer "Gun Metal Grey". It's one of the most upbeat tracks on the album as Lorrie moves into the more personal material. "Ribbon Of Red Taillights" just hints at the emotions that we are going to be exposed to, a song about returning to your hometown only to find out that it's completely forgotten about you. It's one of those songs that I just sat and listened to every lyric, quite unusual for me. Then on "Wishing Well" we get a nice mid-tempo pop song that really showcases Lorrie's craftsmanship. If you put the immediate pop of Fire Engine Red next to big sound of National Dust and then move into this album, you start to realize that Matheson can pretty much do it all. On "Bruises and Change" the keyboard riff reminds me a lot of "Spiders" off of Wilco's latest opus. This song is a little on the dark side but Lorrie manages to pull out the light and keeps it from drowning in depression. It took me a couple listens to get into "All The Way Home" but it's a grower. "Last Call Lights" brings it down low and gentle tells you the morals of life. I didn't care for "On Any Other Night". It was a little too dry. The album closer, "Where Have You Gone" is by far my favorite track on the album. It's got that loping 3/4 time and the clatter in the background fits in so nicely.

I know I'm not the only one that feels this way but more people need to know about Lorrie. This may not be the best record to turn on a new listener because of its more personal nature but Lorrie is indeed a world class singer/songwriter, probably one of the better ones in Canada. Give A Dime At A Time a few spins before you make your final judgment on the album. It does take a couple personal listens to work up to but, as is the case with most albums like that, they end up being favorites.

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