Michael Mattice
Album: Comin' Home
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.michaelmattice.com

Classically-trained (Berklee College Of Music, Boston, Mass.) graduate Michael, after co-founding progressive metal band Yantra, performing in several other outfits and undertaking professional session work, has now found a new vocation as songwriter, and his quietly perceptive writing, set into relief by his refreshing, gentle-but-busy acoustic guitar work, provides the exclusive material for a sufficiently credible debut solo record. This independently released album was highly rated when it first appeared in the States back in June, and it can't fail to win him some friends on this side of the pond now that it gains a proper UK release.

Michael's indie-folk style is engaging enough, although it's easier to warm to his guitar playing than his singing, which is occasionally flat, errs a little on the side of plain and sometimes is rather lacking in character. Vocally, Michael possibly expresses himself best on songs like Windowpane, whereas a limited melodic compass lets him down somewhat on otherwise promising pieces like Maybe. It's not easy to characterise or reference Michael's music, for all its attributes, and a certain anonymity of thought creeps in after a while whatever his subject-matter (generally personal experiences). Train Hoppin' is a bit of an exception, an assemblage of well-worn blues phrases that together do not make a convincing song - and it's given a boxy, retro sound too, which just places it rather at odds with the context of the rest of the album. Having said that, the riff-heavy Led To Gold (yes, that may be a deliberate misspelling!) gains immense strength from its relentless punk charge, and brings the disc alive almost too late to be of any real use to the listener who's been unmoved by the first half-dozen songs.

But again, elsewhere there's a pleasing degree of subtlety in Michael's music, despite some unnecessarily thrashy moments on Don't Ask Why and Lonesome Man. And yet (again), I have to own that repeated exposure and further listening doesn't always yield the fresh insights one might reasonably expect at that latter stage of acquaintance, especially in the case of the first half of the disc. Although there's no denying his level of accomplishment, particularly in the case of his guitar playing, I can't yet hear what all the fuss was about, or ascertain quite why Michael was so highly lauded on his emergence last year onto the songwriting stage. But something tells me I'll be right to persevere if I can find the space amongst all the other music which is laying claim to my ears right now - and that's not such a cut-and-dried decision as it sounds!

David Kidman