Beautiful Scars

Beautiful Scars is the third solo album from the eminent and hirsute Steeltown reprobate, Lee Harvey Osmond - the progenitor of "Acid Folk," - whose previous two albums, A Quiet Evil and The Folk Sinner were previously long-listed for the Polaris Prize and nominated for a Juno. It's a dynamic footprint on Canada's song-scape, a deeply personal, but universally affecting, journey across the jagged line of scars and smoothness of skin that surrounds them. The humanity of the album - produced by Michael Timmins in the intimacy of his Toronto Roncesvalles studio - is like the warmth of blood that rushes to the cut: a sudden jolt in the middle of peril and uncertainty; a suspension of possibility that anything can happen next. Redolent with swooning horns and guitars that bob and weave, LHO's voice - forever the hallmark of his sound, which spans over three decades of work - sounds, here, like a warm hand to the forehead, an arm on the arm of the stricken, a comforting growl at the heart of a screaming world.