Reviewed by Tony Cummings

The Michigan-based artist/producer/mixer reached a high on Dream Record's dance music subsidiary Drom in 2013 with the album 'Shadowland' featuring a clubland gem in the reggae/EDM mashup "Mousetrap". Alongside that, Matthew has remixed for acts like Capital Kings and Lecrae. But as this album demonstrates, the studio wiz doesn't want to be associated solely with clubland floor fillers. In fact track one, "Alice", opens in the most unlikely way imaginable from a techno maestro. "Alice" is sung with no accompaniment at all. If the word acapella conjures up in your musical imagination Take 6 or Anonymous Four, let me explain that Matthew overcomes his lack of group harmonies by feeding his vocal through a vocoder. It might appear a bit pretentious to kick off an album with an acapella vocoder track, but such is the haunting quality of the song - which borrows from Charles Lutwidge's Alice In The Wonderland - it's a gripping start. There is far more variety on Matthew's latest set than on his previous outings. Alongside the catchy pop dancer "Good Memories", "Find U" has some Prince-like rock guitar licks fusing with Owl City-style plaintiveness; the track "Lucid" is an EDM dancer with the always reliable Landry Cantrell guesting; and the reggae-rhythmed "Brower" will grow on you. In a pre-release interview Matthew gushed, "It's been amazing to see how much I've grown as a songwriter and producer and I'm so excited to show the world the new sounds I've come up with." But let's not dwell on Matthew's self-congratulatory remarks. For indeed he HAS grown as a songwriter/producer and the wistful couplets on a song like "Every Other Day" ("I still remember the fifth grade/Life was good, I had no bills to pay/Three bucks would keep me happy for a day") make up for the shallow triumphalism of "Legends". And Matthew does pull off a final creative triumph with the last of the 16 tracks, a synth-strings ballad "Time Stands Still". Yep, a very good album, if not quite a classic.

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