newcritics

Blink.
Blink.
Eyes wide open in a pool of light. Eyes scrunched shut. Brow furrowed.
Gotta get in the zone.
Get in the zone.
THE ZONE.

And then he was.

The other Tom Watson here, the one from the central bit of England that we locals call The Midlands, reviewing a recent Scott Matthews gig and album, Passing Stranger.

Scott Matthews, the mucho-hyped, “new Nick Drake” has something about him that makes you want to listen just that little bit more. I was at his acoustic gig at Birmingham UK’s Glee Club - 200 of us crammed into a room to see a man we unanimously expected to be the new Robert Plant. Even his dad was there. No wonder he had to get in the zone. Expectations were high.

Matthews knows his way around a fret board. With his delicate picking, crunchy riffs and the occasional slide guitar, he could be from Tennessee rather than the lesser-known industrial City of Wolverhampton.

Live and recorded, Matthews has a mesmeric, haunting voice. He holds an urban rhythm that allows a rock-folk fusion album to be underpinned by the tabla playing of Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari from Ravi Shankar’s orchestra, without any sense of contradiction. And throughout the album, he lobs in a musical pub quiz of background sounds. Wasn’t that a clarinet? There goes the flute. In comes the vibraphone. Remarkably, his music just fits together in a sixties-like tableau of undulating melodies and lyrical excursions.

Back at the gig, Scott is cracking jokes that only locals will understand. We all understand. We’re all local. Tickets sold out in hours for this one. He wooed us with his charm. He inspired us with his talent.

Like I said, us Midlanders have high expectations for our local boy. And on the evidence of his first album and recent gig, expectations will be met.