6 January 2009- Welcome 2009 and bless you, you new year. Ought-eight was a sack of shit and I'm quite happy to leave its withered stench behind. And though I spit and scoff at the fetid waste of these past twelve months, I am happy to pluck from it one arty-fact that brings me great joy in this wonderful Rotten Pear.

Like good old-fashioned Canadian handicraft---handmade, heartfelt and even naive---Andrew Vincent's songs are pure heart-on-sleeve nuggets that always manage to nestle their way into the cozy corners of our minds. His knack for churning out memorable melodies and turns of phrase never ceases to amaze, and here on his fifth album, AV offers up some of his most painfully honest slices of song to date.

Rotten Pear was recorded in AV's new home in Toronto with Jarrett Bartlett (The Acorn, Jim Bryson). The Pirates (Bryan Curry and Scott Terry, featured on 2003's I Love the Modern Way) are nowhere to be found here; all three now live in different cities. The result is reminiscent of the old Vincent sound, stripped down with a lightly-strummed acoustic and a fragile voice upfront, but the light-hearted approach of old has been checked at the door. Rotten Pear is thematically the heaviest AV record to date, packing an emotional wallop only hinted at on previous efforts. Loss and loneliness step out under the spotlight, and though they can be an eyesore, their sound in song ring true. Far far truer than the sad crop of singer-songwriters that Canada has so proudly wrapped recently in flags for foreign consumption.

Troubled characters flank Rotten Pear at every corner: the failed Romeo in "Fooled Again," the beaten punk in "Ruffian," the drug-addled subject of "Hi Lo." Vincent has a penchant for painting portraits of the fringe personalities we encounter daily, weekly and monthly, but empowering them with tales that make us sit up, pay attention, and dang if we don't care about these people too (who could be fictional for all we know). It's Vincent's greatest gift, and the reason listeners keep coming back to the trough again and again.

Andrew Vincent now lives in Toronto, hard at work on a PhD in Mass Communications at York. Keep up to the minute on AV happenings by visiting his MySpace page!

REVIEWS

Praise for I Love the Modern Way

****- Andrew Vincent's natural talent for taking awkward thinking and turning it into perfect words is centre stage here. - Dylan Young - Hour.ca

"...he ropes audiences in with super-structured lyrics riding on wit, wordplay, pop-cultural allusions and Ottawa in-jokes." - Joshua Ostroff - Eye

Read the Splendid review of A Short Trip...
Read the Mote review of A Short Trip...
Read the Toronto Eye review of To Thine