MATTHEW BROWNING: Love & Grief (ALTERNATIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Not much information about Matthew Browning can be found on the Internet. We can barely learn that he is American, from Memphis, that he studied music from a very young age and that his recognized influences are Peter Gabriel, Queen or Radiohead. However, behind this quasi-mystery, hides an artist of great talent as proved by his first album, "Love & Grief".

The record, with its variegated style sometimes difficult to define, contains a lot of finely chiseled compositions that bewitch the listener from their first notes and that renew the miracle with each listening. The often mid-tempo melodies give off a romantic melancholy without any mawkishness, the kind that invites you to daydream. The strings layers which come unceasingly to mix with the traditional "rock" instruments are certainly for something there but, far from transforming the songs into too syrupy things, they create a beautiful opposition between sweetness and revolt.

Matthew Browning has a gift for grabbing the listener right from the start with an addictive pop-rock theme that gets stuck in your head. But far from being satisfied with a peaceful little song, he constantly introduces new elements that enrich and make the listening of this album exciting, going from an orchestral accompaniment of strings to a rougher rock sound to finish on an intimate piano, making a female voice (Gina Milne whose every intervention is a rough diamond) appear as a counterpoint to the male voice, this one showing himself as much at ease in the highs as in the cavernous lows, frequently opposing the softness of the verses to the catchy interpretation of the choruses.

Everything is beautiful on this album. The rises in intensity are legion and inevitably put shivers. 'Underneath The Willow', superb title which opens the disc, gives the tone. How not to succumb to the charm of 'Daylight' with its emphatic and choral finale, to the duet of 'Fallen Angel', poignant and bewitching, to the melancholy of 'Lake of Dreams' which offers a detour to the side of a melodic metal à la Nightwish, of 'I Walked Over The Edge' with a remarkable intelligence and finesse, of 'Artificial Sunset' mixing the symphonic character of Muse with a folkloric side with a false air of Mike Oldfield, or of 'Distant Bodies' whose "Amen" reminds the Alleluia of Jeff Buckley?

Located at the confluence of pop, rock, art rock, folk and prog, "Love & Grief" is a first album whose intensity and charm never fail. For a first try, Matthew Browning undoubtedly succeeds a master stroke and delivers one of the best albums of 2018. - Official website

MATTHEW BROWNING

LOVE & GRIEF

AUTRE LABEL

ALTERNATIVE ROCK