It’s refreshing to be listening to music that comes from the gut and sticks to the guts like glue.

Rodney Decroo has been airing out and exercising musically some real gritty ghosts these past few years, and with each release, he solidifies himself as one of Vancouver’s more accomplished songwriters. The music he writes comes from experience. There are no tall tales told or odes to the latest dance club hits accentuated with lasers and hot keyboard strikes in this body of work. Instead the listener is invited to peer into a former hard lived life flush with struggle, pain, self-medication, introspection and redemption. Call these songs a means of healing for a man who has experienced enough blues to sink the ship of most “seen-it-all” shoegazer bands.

Queen Mary Trash is Decroo’s fourth album and probably his best yet. Beauty and venom co-mingle nicely over 90 minutes and there is barely a dull moment to be had. A more “rocking” album than his last, Mockingbird Bible, Queen Mary is still served up with ample amounts of alt-country and delicate folk ramblings for balance’s sake. Stand out tracks are the frustration fueled “You Ain’t No One” that just rips it up while “Everything Is Taken From Us” is heartbreaking and as real as it gets. With 24 songs, this album is a lot to digest, but like a good gripping novel, digesting this music is a fantastic way to spend your time.