Or… How to make an 11 out of 10 album.
The Delusional Vanity Project (DVP) live experience is one absolutely made for the Friday night pub. and Matt Owens knows his strengths, and celebrates them on my single of 2023, ‘One For The Grapes’. I’ve praised this elsewhere (here in fact about halfway down the page). So, all I’ll say is go to the bottom of the page and listen and get yourself along to The Grapes, Westgate Street, Bath on a Friday.
Second song in Glasgow City Lights, is a celebration of another of my favourite places. More harmonica from Robert Vincent, and an Americana based tune that celebrates one of the great night out spots. His duet with Hannah White ‘5 Years into Marriage’ turns to his acoustic side. We are blessed to be living in a time of some great lyric writers, nd Matt is right up there with Alex Ellis, and Peter Bruntnell as someone whose words need particular attention paid to them. The key line ion this song “You were straightening deckchairs on the Titanic again,” sounds a bit obvious written down, but in the context of the song is heart stopping.
While I’m very much a fan of his rock and roll side (too many nights at the Grapes) the slower tunes on this album are where the bar has been raised most notably from his previous albums. ‘Blindsided by Time’ builds to a guitar solo for which the word epic was invented. Piano, Guitar, and Harmonica ballad ‘Morning Light’ is a current favourite, but that changes with every play.
‘The Bard of The Bars’ is an observational masterpiece, and the almost Beatles-y arrangement gives it the light touch that makes the nearly 6 minutes of its story rush past. With ‘Blindsided by Time’ at close to 8 minutes it’s refreshing that he has allowed the songs room to breath rather than making them fit into a get it done and get out mould.
The second half of the album is made up of some of his finest songwriting. ‘Hope The Darkness Pulls You Through’, and the heavier electric guitar of ‘Death, Sickness and Heartache’ are superb. But the prize for inspirational songwriting goes to closing song ‘Twickenham Station’. Making a West London suburb sound as exotic as Ventura Highway, or Wichita Kansas is feat, and one Matt Owens is equal to.
I loved his last album ‘Beer For the Horses’, and this is better. The songwriting stretches out, the Rock and Roll is live and dynamic, and the acoustic side has taken a step forward for me. Just brilliant, buy it now, here in fact.
Matt is also running the Bath songwriters festival on March 16th, I’ll write more about that next week, but if you don’t book for it you will be sorry…
