Black Suit Devil is back with his second studio album, A Matter of Time, and this go round, the tracks are all honesty and no hiding. Black Suit Devil (A.K.A. Brantford musician Andy Du Rego) has decided to drop the metaphors and shroud of poetry in favour of lyrics that tell it like it is. A Matter of Time addresses all kinds of issues seen in everyday life: homophobia, greed, climate crisis and more.
"I've been writing it [Matter of Time] since 2015...I wanted to make a really honest record, I guess. The most honest record I've made up to this point." Andy says over the phone. "I really dove into things that really mean a lot to me and actual personal experiences in my life." It shows. Du Rego's thick, deep and raspy vocals aren't the only things that cut the air like a knife when the album comes on. It's the bold, no-fucks-given nature of what he's saying too. It's the instrumentation. It's the fullness of an album that took time to craft.
Engineering, writing and producing the entire album himself has demonstrated B.S.D.'s growth in album production. While he's produced albums before, A Matter of Time is the first time he engineered an album all himself, done right out of a home studio he built. He's acquired musicians from across the province to play on the record which features drops of folk, hints of bluegrass and a brassy big band sound at times as well. Citing Bob Dylan and Tom Waits as inspiration for the album for their ability to try different things and create songs whose lyrics have political weight, it's easy to draw the lines between Black Suit Devil's latest album and the political push from days gone by.
The goal of the record? To open eyes and make people think and talk about the things in their everyday surroundings. "I think the more we sit down and talk about different things, the more we connect and the more we can see that we're all pretty much the same in a lot of ways." says Du Rego. "When you strip us down to bare bones, we all kind of want the same things out of life."
Despite the weight of this album, Du Rego doesn't necessarily feel that music has to be about taking a stand. In his eyes you can definitely write songs for fun but this album is his attempt to use music as a driver for change and there are no ifs, ands or buts about it.
If you'd like to check out Black Suit Devil's latest album (and why wouldn't you?), you can check it out on all major platforms.
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