A Cosmic Year is the sound of an artist really finding their sound. Now, I’m not knocking anything Matt C. White has done before, far from it, his music has always been boundary pushing and sonically bountiful, but this, for me, is where it all comes together.
It would be easy to merely label Matt as just another tattooed, long-haired rocker wielding a guitar before the altar of rock and roll, but that would be to miss the point. Yes, he looks the part, but never judge a book by its cover, they say, and this is certainly the case here.
If this new album has a rock base, and it does, it is one infused with psychedelic soundscapes and often venturing down into dark and doom-laden sonics. It can be euphoric and groovy, dark and downbeat, and is just as often straightforward and punchy as it is proggy and ornate. This is the sound of the alternative, the outsider, the liminal, the sort of music which has always walked its own path, a kaleidoscopic and trippy, adventurous and experimental path at that.
For every classic rock-infused anthem such as “Blood Divine”, there is a piece like “Amalgamate,” gothic blues and creeping basslines from the other side of the seventh circle of hell. For every “I Gotta Get Out”, a crunching, relentless foot-on-the-monitor rabble rouser, you get “The Way Down” – funky, understated and eminently groovy!
Yes, it is rock music, but rock music being pushed through every sonic border, rock music being fused with every neighbouring genre, rock music exploring what it can be, rock music on the outside track, rock music that unites the past with the present and points to a healthy future for the genre.
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