Ken Dirschl - Plan for Conquest

This Ottawa-bred artist paid his dues in the ’90s playing the Toronto bar circuit in his rock band Gasoline. Obviously, Dirschl learned plenty in that time. On his confident, self-produced solo debut, he sings and plays all the instruments on a dozen original songs that bear the mark of a young Tom Petty or Steve Earle. With material as strong as the country-tinged “Sister Love,” the Celtic rocker “One Night with the Irish” and the sweet confessional ballad “The One and Only Girl,” Dirschl clearly has a promising future.