M.G. Boulter
Album: The Water Or The Wave
Label: Harbour Songs
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.mgboulter.co.uk

Lucky Strikes frontman Matthew, aka M.G. Boulter follows up last year's, "The Whispering Pines", with solo album number three, "The Water Or The Wave", the debut being "Blue Vinyl Island", back in 2008, seeing as you were going to ask.

Similarly whilst this is described as a solo album, he has surrounded himself with an excellent corps of musicians including half of Troubadour Rose, Bryony Afferson & Lizzy O'Connor, Dire Strait's drummer Pick Withers as well a couple of his Lucky Strikes compatriots, Paul Ambrose and Jim Wilson.

Matthew is likewise no stranger in contributing his musical skills to a wide range of other projects, including now being a full time member of the Simone Felice Band. All of that collaborative working seems to have very much opened his mind to different ways of working and bringing those disciplines into his own songs.

Most of the album was conceived in a long stint of touring, with the elements being brought together overlooking the mud flats of the Thames Delta. "The Water Or The Wave" does have that feel of an album that has been put together by an artist that feels he has the freedom just to go out and express himself.

The previous album was 'tinged with darkness and a sorrowful undertow' and whilst that is still there, it's put into a narrower perspective by songs that have a more positive quality, the relaxed pace of someone that's out for a stroll, out to just enjoy the world around them, rather than rushing to be somewhere.

I suppose another way of putting it, is that this is not an album feels the need to unload it's soul, this is an album that is a deep and meaningful conversation between friends enjoying a glass of wine and sharing their thoughts on the state of their world.

Solo, M.G. Boulter has a more English feel to his sound, he's always been very good with his words, but he seems to have found an inner contentment that has allowed him to find a different way to express them. As importantly he's shared that vision with the musicians he's brought in to make, "The Water And The Wave" and the result is an album that is, quite simply, sublime.

Neil King