True Believer
- Matthew Barber
- Outside
Is that a tune in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? I Think You're Gonna Feel My Love, the opening track to Matthew Barber's song-strong new album, bounds put of the gates with Traveling Wilburys sociability and a Viagra-sponsored gleam in the eye - what Roy Orbison couldn't sing with a straight face, Barber can and does. The Toronto singer-songwriter has made an assured record, one with varying tempos and heartfelt moods that is smartly ordered and marked by the sharp marriage of melody and word - I hear Jackson Browne, Loudon Wainwright III and Liam Finn, I really do. The record's apex is a swelling, horn-boosted, piano-dappled title song that busts slumps wide open. True belief? I believe Barber means what he sings, at all times.