Matt Andersen & the Big Bottle of Joy With The Hello Darlins

The Big Bottle of Joy is about celebration-hard-won, overflowing, exuberant celebration. Matt Andersen’s latest long-player lives up to the grand title from its opening song, “Let It Slide”;a muscular, organ-drenched urge for people to chill out and be good to each other-to its understated, romantic curtain-closer, “Shoes.” Andersen finds reason to sustain this celebration of the life we share together everywhere-on the road, missing a lover; between the sheets in a southern Ontario motel room; from Montreal “all the way to New Orleans;” in a “little kitchen ballroom” on a quiet night at home. Over a dozen songs infused with raw blues-rock, rollicking Americana, thoughtful folk, and ecstatic gospel, he testifies to something we could all do well to remember: the time we have together is special, so let’s spend it the right way.

“Being good to each other, you know, in taking care of each other-those are the biggest things I want to put out there,” Andersen says. “If we're in it together, it'll be a lot easier than trying to do it on our own.”

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