Sure, there are people building all sorts of wacky guitar models every day. You can now buy guitars that fold up, amps that get charged through solar power, and even instruments that tune themselves. You don’t have to settle for a six-stringed electric guitar anymore, either. You can purchase yourself instruments with a colossal number of strings and create rumbling noise that would make heaven’s gates rattle.
But what for? How can you improve upon perfection? The reason why every single pop star playing stadiums nowadays has to have a guitar player on stage is because audiences demand it and instinctively know that most of the best songs are just waiting to be played on those old six strings.
Matthew Shadley Band has retained a healthy fascination with guitar-based music, especially with the dynamic variation that made 90s alternative-rock such a treat. Shadley has one theory which Alt77 embraces – what else sounds better than a distorted six-string guitar? Not much, and it’s with what the “Prenatural Dreams” album begins and ends.
Not a lot! Take, for example, the opening track, “My Sunday Song.” A no-frills tune about wasting away the weekend with a pleasant high and a nice melody ringing in your ears, Matthew Shadley Band speaks the language of many modern-day people.
It’s a strong, familiar garage-rock riff leading the charge for the retro-sounding “Hard to Be.” And grunge dynamics and witchy visions are what help “Go Down Easy” flow so nicely.
And while it may sound like The Matthew Shadley Band merely know how to cleverly manipulate guitar riffs and shape them into songs, a careful listen will reveal great knowledge of pop music history. The “Prenatural Dreams” record is a walkthrough of a fascination with 60s pop-rock, 90s grunge, blues and jazz.
It’s why the piano lines and the expressive bass lines are so attractive on the mellow “Engima Four.” It’s the reason why the acoustic-guitar-based soft-rock of “So Far Behind” avoids becoming dull or predictable.
Where does it all leave us? On a journey with a confident, easy-to-like band that manoeuvres easily through musical styles. But don’t take it all too seriously! That’s the last thing that the Matthew Shadley Band would like you to do. Even the moodier pieces, “Prenatural Dreams” and “High Times” contain enough hopefulness to let you walk away with a smile. If you can’t trust a good guitar riff, what else can you trust?
