This is Matt Backer's fifth solo album that he's released while also playing guitar for ABC, Julian Lennon, Rumer, Elton John, Joe Cocker and a whole host of other legendary names. The album is co-produced by Matt alongside Ian Shaw and they make sure everything sounds crystalline and the placement of all the instruments really add to the songs.
The album opens with TMI a slice of intelligent pop blues with as you'd expect some great guitar flourishes and interludes between the arch lyrics about the information over-load, we are all suffering from.
Hooked On Love is a mature duet with Francesca De Bonis whose sultry vocals make a good counterpoint to Matt's softer vocals on this supremely well played if slightly too polite blues love song.
A cover of Mose Alisons Middle Class White Boy is next and yes it acknowledges that no matter how good a blues player you may be, if you are that Middle Class White Boy you can never totally have the blues, the production stands out as the guitar solo tries his darndest to prove Matt really does have the blues and sold his soul at the Crossroads motel.
The Devil Washed His Hands Of Me has a Medway Delta blues feel to it with hushed vocals and the most restrained drumming possible while sounding a lot like an old Robbie Robertson song.
The Last Guitarist has sweet vocals over a welter of guitar trickery and effects and well it makes me hope and pray we haven't heard the Last Guitarist yet, although this could be about whoever Matt was getting to replace in yet another band.
Unrequited Love Song is a slow late-night blues for all the loves that never happened or went wrong for all the reasons Matt sings about, as he still dreams that one day the love he shares with you might finally be requited instead of you running off with someone else again.
Close Protection is an urgent slightly pained blues rocker that tries to get beyond the Close Protection squad surrounding the object of Matt's desire, he intends to get through to her by bending those guitar strings and adding more twists to the music that sounds a little bit like Chris Spedding on his Pearls album.
The Eyes Have It keeps things in the key of Spedding with hints of Walter Trout and when the chorus hits it goes all Alessi Brothers sans the falsetto vocals just before Mari Wilson comes in to reply to Matt's ministrations as they try to work out just what the eyes are saying this time.
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All Kinds Of It chugs along as Matt lists exactly what Kinds Of It are getting to him and why he wants to fight back.
Secondhand Heart takes a second-hand tune and reworks it into a very pleasant laid back almost JJ Cale blues pop song of love and desire that is almost too nice.
Life And Soul is all about being with someone who is dangerous to be around they are going for it so full on and have no limits, we have all known women and men like this, the blistering blues seem to be cheering her on as that trip gets wilder by the minute.
The Dictators Daughter is all about falling deeply in love with a woman with an extremely dangerous dad, thankfully it doesn't sound like he was lusting after a Trump, as his musical foil on this one Susie Webb sounds far more sophisticated.
Mystic Rulers may be a song to win over that Dictator by claiming he's really a mystic guru, rather than anything more worrying.
Hooked On Love (Leggero Ritorno) is a good reprise and slightly jazzier version of the song to the first version on the album with some far more prominent sax.
The album closes with a very cool cover of Billy Boy Arnold's Wish You Would that features Sarah Jane Morris as additional vocalist as they take the song back to its blues roots and away from the garage glam stomp of David Bowies classic version, this seems to have far more in common with the original's spirit a really great way to end the album.
Find out more at www.mattbacker.com www.rightrecordings.com https://www.facebook.com/matt.backer.585
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