Matt Mays matures on genre-blurring album ‘When the Angels Make ContactÂ’

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This article was published 13/11/2006 (7227 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HALIFAX (CP) – Even for a guy with the work ethic of a dirt farmer, the thought of simultaneously juggling two albums – and two countries – seems fairly daunting.

Then again, it’s Matt Mays we’re talking about. The 27-year-old rocker, who always seems to be on the road or in the recording studio, has just released his third album in Canada, “When the Angels Make Contact.” Then there’s his long-awaited debut in the United States with the release there of 2005’s “Matt Mays and El Torpedo.”

And his recent move to New York as part of an ambitious plan to crack the U.S. scene.

“I have the time to do it all, and a willingness to be on the road basically 12 months a year,” Mays explains during a telephone interview from the road.

“I basically have to put on a few different hats in the next few months to do everything.”

Mays, from Dartmouth, N.S., sounds upbeat and confident as he discusses his work, including “Angels,” the soundtrack of a movie he shot last summer but ran out of money before completing.

A bold, risky collection, the album blurs the lines between classic rock, folk, trip hop and electronica, and has the potential to scare off some fans of his fierce guitar rock.

But enthusiasts of his work with El Torpedo, a road-tested backup band that doesn’t appear on “Angels,” shouldn’t find the new album so different to be off-putting.

Songs like “The Past” and “Mornin’ Sun” still reflect his love for ’70s rock and country, and are two of the finest he’s ever put to tape. And his forays into other genres are mostly enhancing flourishes, not full-blown assaults.

“The way I look at it is this: the number of hardcore fans I alienate, I will gain in new fans,” he says. “It sucks to lose fans, but I really don’t think I will.”

On the song that gives the album its name, Mays welds a driving industrial beat to a brief but tasty rap by fellow Nova Scotian Buck 65 for the album’s thematic centrepiece.

“Buck 65 is one of my biggest musical heroes,” gushes Mays, a Juno nominee who has put out three albums since 2003.

“Lyrically, he’s amazing. I listen to his lyrics so closely. When I wrote that song, I had him in mind.”

A couple of songs do, though, sound nothing like Mays, including “Under My Senses,” a trippy, jazzy number sung by Halifax’s Kristen Hatt. On “Midnight is the Time,” Mays used a vocoder, an electronic voice synthesizer best known for its use on Neil Young’s ’80s oddball album “Trans,” to give his vocals an unrecognizable robotic chill.

Mays says he wanted to use the opportunity of a movie soundtrack to reflect his love for many musical styles.

“Most soundtracks have a ton of different genres on them, but normally there’s a bunch of different bands to reflect that,” he says. “I wanted to write all the songs and record all the songs myself.”

Mays plans to showcase the new album early next year in a cross-Canada tour of soft-seat theatres that will feature a new nine-piece band, and visuals and sound effects from the canned film.

“I really want it to be a spectacle. I really want it to look incredible and sound incredible. I want it to be something that people haven’t seen or heard before. I’m very ambitious about this tour.”

His ambitions south of the border are just as bold.

Mays and El Torpedo drummer Tim Jim Baker recently moved into an apartment outside New York City and the full band has begun to tour heavily in support the U.S. release.

A recent stand at a New York club drew increasingly larger crowds and led to an offer to open for Shooter Jennings, son of country outlaw Waylon Jennings.

He’s also beginning to attract some media attention south of the border, including a recent profile in the Boston Globe and some early radio and video play in New York.

“Some nights it’s been a bit of a bummer . . . but at the same time it’s really kicking our ass,” Mays says of the response to their U.S. shows.

“We’re stepping up our shows tenfold these days because we have so much to prove. . . . We know we can get a fan base eventually.

“I don’t see borders anymore. I just see people who like music.”