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Backroads Heart Attack Press Release
July 10, 2003

Proving that good things come to those who wait, Jeff Mattison delivers the goods on Backroads Heart Attack, his first release in over four years.

Going well beyond the acoustic-based tunes of his debut record Moonshine Rain, the new CD also features Jeff’s electric band The Wayward Angels, with Dave Zirbel (Mother Truckers) on lead guitar, pedal steel, and dobro and the locomotive rhythm section of drummer Jesse Wickman and bass player Paul Hoffman (both from One Horse Town). Backroads Heart Attack is much more of an electric affair, one that Section M Magazine described as “plaintive, dirty, bluesy alt-country”.

Once again recorded in Petaluma at Grizzly Mufuggin’s Studios with Roger Tschann, the CD is stunning from start to finish, with artwork designed by Susan Stover Flory adding visual disturbance to a relentlessly quick-paced song selection. Containing a dozen songs, Backroads Heart Attack elaborates on many of the themes familiar to those who know Jeff’s music. Whether reflecting on economic and spiritual dislocation in songs like California Blues and That Old Train, raising the specter of backwoods distilleries and Robert Johnson in songs like Medicine Jar and Over Yonder Faire, conjuring up an apocalyptic aura in Evening Blues, Post-Modern Lament, and Judgement Day, or ruminating about love gone wrong in I’ll Be Your Angel and She’s Gone Again, the album is truly a bumper crop of the finest homegrown American Roots music.

A nicely balanced offering, the record sets alt-country rockers and driving electric folk blues material against more acoustic-based songs. The rock-solid rhythm section of Jesse Wickman and Paul Hoffman and the stellar lead guitar, dobro, and pedal steel work of Dave Zirbel combine with the high quality of Jeff’s songwriting and the careful seasoning of Layne Bowen’s mandolin and Callie Watts’ backing vocals to produce one of the year’s most exciting releases.

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