Always Everything by Graven

Always Everything is Graven’s 20th musical release and his 13th major album. Soaring softly, sweetly and immediately with Comforter, Matty McKechnie’s voice is searching for comfort in a strange disconnected world with soft acoustic fingerpicks - and perhaps also seeking to provide that comfort for others. The 8 songs hang under the thematic canopy of relationships and the societal pressures of people needing to find their one - or their soulmate. The piano and drippy distorted guitar droner “The One” spills the words of someone who seems tired out by the societal struggle and who is also seeking solace in the peace of deep tree-thick nature. The middle of the record takes a sharp turn with the previously released “Middle Relief” but gives a lighthearted mind-break to the deep waters of the album with daydreaming about being a major league middle relief pitcher. Songs like “Just Enough” highlight the difficult pinpoint balance of companionship and finding that perfect recipe for romance - and “Therapy” speaks to the dangers of a far gone relationship where a partner is being relied on to be the other person’s savior and lighthouse. But ultimately, the perils of the rugged relational romantic journey seem to crescendo in the opus of the album’s title track - and the album picture-wraps with Matty remembering his daughter and how her continued unwavering light has kept him rooted and steady and focused on what truly matters through any of life’s treachery and turmoil.

Graven (Matty McKechnie) is a Nepean, Ontario, Canada-born indie folk musician and songwriter who used to make bedroom rap casettes in his teens under the name “Man Of Steel”. His newest album Simple Complex was mixed by Joel Plaskett and made in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

gravencanada.com