For Karen Lee Bat­ten, music is all about hon­esty.

Every word she sings is filled with raw, gen­uine emo­tion, and this com­mit­ment to sin­cer­ity is at the heart of her new album, Cause a Scene.

“I love real music,” Bat­ten explains. “Not that other gen­res aren’t real, but coun­try music just makes sense for me. What I’m singing has a mean­ing — it’s not just words leav­ing my mouth. When I sing I try to feel every word cre­at­ing an energy or emotion that I can only hope the audi­ence feels too. That’s my goal.”

The B.C.-based Bat­ten has con­sis­tently wowed audi­ences across the country with her soar­ing and impec­cable singing.

She was a top 10 final­ist on Cana­dian Idol, and she’s a three-time win­ner of the British Colum­bia Coun­try Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year award.

Her voice shone on her debut album, 2006’s inde­pen­dently released Every Moment, which earned strong radio play across the coun­try. A video for the sin­gle Hearts of the Run found suc­cess at CMT Canada.

Hav­ing honed her skills through her busy live sched­ule per­form­ing on many stages and fes­ti­vals such as Cal­gary Stam­pede Nasvhille North 2009 – 2012, open­ing for record­ing artist such as Big and Rich, the Oakridge Boys, Lon­es­tar, Emer­son Drive, Aaron Lines, Ian Tyson, Deric Ruttan, Gord Bam­ford and many more. She has hit a new artis­tic peak with Cause a Scene. The 11-song col­lec­tion includes con­tri­bu­tions from some of the industry’s finest song­writ­ing tal­ents, and Bat­ten co-wrote some of the mate­r­ial dur­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive ses­sions in Nashville.

The album cap­tures a broad palette of styles and moods ranging from heartfelt sweet­ness of Life Worth Living to the rowdy coun­try rock sass of lead sin­gle Cause a Scene.  There’s even a cover of the Doobie Broth­ers’ smooth and soul­ful clas­sic “Minute by Minute.”

Williams Lake Tribune