MATT ANDERSEN - The Hammer & The Rose 2025

Matt Andersen’s The Hammer & The Rose is a veritable garden of heart. On his latest record, the Canadian songwriter opts for the kind of thoughtful, tender sentiments and arrangements one might associate with flowers, trading in the hard steel edges of his heavy blues riffs for delicate compositions and a warm sweetness. The title track provides an elegant metaphor for the differences and push-and-pull relationship between the head and the heart: the head wants to blaze a trail, prioritize practicality, and motor through things, while the heart wants to slow down, feel things, feel good. On The Hammer & The Rose, it’s the heart - the rose, the honey, the soul - that (mostly) wins out. But this is, of course, a Matt Andersen record. A surplus of heart is to be expected.

When Matt Andersen steps on stage, he brings a lifetime of music to every note he plays. Andersen’s stage presence is informed by decades of cutting his teeth in dusty clubs, dim-lit bars, and grand theatres all over the world, delivering soulful performances that run the gamut from intimate to wall-shaking. In the studio, he’s always brought the same attention to detail and commitment to craft as he has to his live show, and the result - a multi-faceted and poignant body of work - has led him to amass over 31 million streams on Spotify and 30 million views on YouTube.

In addition to headlining major festivals, clubs and theatres throughout North America, Europe, and Australia, he has shared the stage and toured with Marcus King, Beth Hart, Marty Stuart, Greg Allman, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Randy Bachman, Serena Ryder, Tab Benoit, and more.

Andersen nabbed the 2013 and 2016 European Blues Awards for Best Solo/Acoustic Act, was the first ever Canadian to take home top honours in the solo category at the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, won the CIMA Road Gold award in 2015, and has won multiple Maple Blues Awards. His previous record ‘Matt Andersen & The Big Bottle of Joy’ was nominated for a Juno Award in 2024.

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