Colin James, Matt Andersen, Terra Lightfoot

With 21 studio albums, 8 Juno Awards, 31 Maple Blues Awards and multi-platinum record sales, Colin James remains at the top of his game, continuing to challenge himself musically. His current release, Chasing the Sun, finds the blues-rock singer-songwriter’s electrifying new album featuring the kind of towering musical guests typically found on the other side of velvet ropes.

Matt Andersen’s The Hammer & The Rose is a veritable garden of heart. On his latest record, the Canadian songwriter opts for the kind of thoughtful, tender sentiments and arrangements one might associate with flowers, trading in the hard steel edges of his heavy blues riffs for delicate compositions and a warm sweetness. On The Hammer & The Rose, it’s the heart - the rose, the honey, the soul - that (mostly) wins out. But this is, of course, a Matt Andersen record. A surplus of heart is to be expected.

With 2023's Healing Power, Terra Lightfoot showcases her considerable clout as a pop songsmith, guitarist and vocalist, delivering a dozen stunning tracks that together represent a career high. To describe Lightfoot's decade-plus musical evolution as astonishing is an understatement. Healing Power delivers the peerless pop-rock album that fans have long known she's always had in her - a prismatic tour de force from the charismatic rocker.