For those unaware, Iain Matthews has been such a prolific creator for so long that he’s unsure if How Much Is Enough? is his 53rd or 54th solo album.

What’s clear is that after a 60-year career including fronting seminal folk rock band Fairport Convention and hits on both sides of the Atlantic, he’s a man with little to prove but much still to say (even if he does threaten that each new record will be his last!)

“I just felt that I needed to make one more solo album as a farewell gift,” he offered from his longtime home in the Netherlands. “But how does a songwriter retire? I honestly don’t know how to stop being a songwriter and don’t know if I ever will.”

How Much Is Enough? finds Matthews marrying his signature, eloquent folk rock to the sepia-tinted songcraft of Neil Finn, the wide-eyed, wistful wonder of a young David Bowie, and more recent influences including Elliot Smith and Hiss Golden Messenger.

Fusing acoustic and electric instrumentation, it’s a record made by a man who didn’t need to make a record, and that purity and authenticity permeates its cultured songcraft and heartfelt lyricism.

1. Ripples In A Stream
2. The Bird and The Fish
3. Where Is The Love
4. She’s A Digital Girl
5. Good Intentions
6. How Much Is Enough?
7. I Walk
8. The New Dark Ages
9. Rhythm & Blues
10. It’s Complicated
11. The Santa Fe Line
12. Turn And Run
13. To Baby

With Iain being one of the most iconic singers in the folk rock/Americana genre, his brand new recording opens on the expansively sculpted Ripples In A Stream and the beautifully free flowing The Bird and The Fish, and then we are brought forth the mid-tempo guitar rock of Where Is The Love, and both the melodious rocker She’s A Digital Girl, the low slung Good Intentions, and then the Americana-drift of the titular How Much Is Enough? greets us.

Along next is the gentle bluesy foot-tapper I Walk and the touching The New Dark Ages, and they are in turn backed by the impassioned Rhythm & Blues, then comes my own personal favorite, the dutiful rock hipsway of It’s Complicated, the album rounding out on the storytelling within The Santa Fe Line, the gently rambunctious Turn And Run, coming to an all too soon close on the affectionately crafted To Baby.

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