The cover of Johnny Matteson’s fantastic new album Song Of The Streets displays a gritty black and white photograph of Johnny, sat on those streets, guitar in hand. His eyes are deep in thought, remembering, sad, contemplative. On the face of it, you’d be expecting an album full of raw, acoustic, downbeat pain, but you’d be wrong. From the anthemic opener The Broken through to the uplifting Big Hearts, the scene is set for a world filled with something you won’t find in most of the artists screaming up today’s charts: authenticity, imagination and bittersweet storytelling. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his early 20s, Johnny has spent much of his life among “the broken” and has been part of it. But this is not an album of self pity or pleas for sympathy. It’s a celebration of lives lived outside what society has deemed to be normal. The songs consist mainly of vignettes and memories of people. The stories don’t all have happy endings, but each is a celebration of a life lived, and the tone of the music is upbeat. Johnny's all about finding the beauty in “the broken”, and that he does with unique style, unforgettable melodies, and a folk-pop sensibility that will have you flipping back to track one as soon as the album draws to a close.