Review: Matt Stevens - Relic

Sometimes your mind is blown to the point where you need to just stop and think about whatever subject matter is in question. And as your whole world slows down, you contemplate what you know and what you think you know. You then realize how finite your understanding is and how vast even the smallest of particles is.

Like Tuesday, when I found out that they just beat light. Like, the constant, c. Einstein’s relativity was based largely around c. Physics is based around c. And they beat it.

Mind blown.

And yes, their results need to be verified, but even the thought that something might be faster than light is mind-boggling. The implications…

 Then Tuesday night, I saw magician Brian Brushwood (blog on that later!). Sure, some stuff was transparent, but other parts were just crazy. Like when he had a nail come out of his eye?? You expect to see bizarre stuff, but that’s just nuts. Mind blown.

Then there was last week. I finally got a chance to listen to Matt Stevens’ new album, Relic. And I say finally not because it just came out. No, I’ve had it for a week or so. But these are albums, not singles, and deserve to be listened to as such. Anything less and you miss the point. Like a magician, you expect Stevens to blow your mind with something on his album. And so much like a magician, the only chance you have of understanding these events is with your undivided attention, away from any distractions.

So I took a menial task at work and cashed in on the otherwise mindless time, listening a few times through. Mind blown.

Matt Stevens is known for live looping, innovation, and being quirky and unexpected. Both his writing ability and his ability to deliver are inspirational and merit the following that has kept net chatter active and growing for the past few years. Whether it is organizing streaming festivals or releasing a solo album or releasing an album with one of his projects (The Fierce and the Dead, Yonks), Stevens has given fans reasons to tune in and stay active.

Relic is no exception. It delivers what we have come to expect from Stevens since his 2008 release, Echo. That is, something completely different.

See, at the advent of Stevens’ solo career, live looping was something few people had heard of. There were the one man bands paraded as side-shows and then a small underground following of live loopers who were too far experimental to be seen by the public eye. Were there others? Yes, but none quite like Stevens. With his debut album, Echo, Stevens pushed loop-centric experimental acoustic guitar work into an accessible realm. He did things that seemed on the surface to be normal and harmless. It was stuff that sounded friendly, but was done by one man, not a 6 piece band, and was counted in 11/8 or 13/8 or worse.

Following Echo, Stevens released Ghost. We all expected what we knew from Echo, but what we got was Echo mixed with a band. Still distinctly Stevens, but with additional percussion and a bass line or two. This blindsided fans, but they liked it. And as the albums success grew, so did Stevens’ career.

All the while, Stevens has released live album after live album in a Dave Matthews type fashion. Despite only having 3 full studio albums, including Relic, I believe I have about 7 solo albums from the last 3 or 4 years. Then there are the projects… This level of quality output has left fans seldom at a point when there wasn’t something new. Where your top 40 artists release singles every few months, Stevens seems to release entire albums. All quality.

So we have gone up to the point of Relic, where you would think that Stevens would have settled into some type of formula. After all, if it’s working for you, why change? But that’s not music. Stevens wanted something new and fresh, so once again, we were blindsided for the better.

First, I noted that there was a lot more of everyone else. Stevens is still the main act in his solo work, but there is more presence with drum samples and the like. It gives it a little more accessibility to those who are afraid of the solo guitarist, yet its complexity still keeps everyone coming back.

After that, I noticed that the album doesn’t have the same flow as Echo or Ghost. Songs are less reliant on one another. Not so much as MR. BUNGLE, but enough to make you step back. At first, this seems abrasive, but after a few times through, it see that it comes together to build something. It’s something he hasn’t done before; taken elements of chaos and placing them throughout the album. You don’t see it on his other albums because harmonic cohesion was a focal point of the earlier album themes.

Chaos is new. And fresh. And Frost? Frost is the track that Stevens figured would begin to alienate fans. It reminded me of the way that Dream Theater alienates fans whenever they have an album that is heavier or softer than the previous; which is every time. Or the way that Meat Puppets incorporated country in with acid rock to rile people up. Maybe not in that way, but it’s just so far removed from your view of “Matt Stevens.” It’s heavy. It’s aggressive. It’s in your face. It’s metal. Legitimately. It reminds you that Stevens’ original influences on songs like Burning Bandstands were bands like Metallica. It seems like all of the experimental acoustic guitarists out there have roots in metal. Regardless, I thought my itunes had skipped to a different artist. It was bizarre at first.

And then you see that that’s what the album was building towards. People who are into pretty sounding acoustic music often view heavy metal as this ugly chaotic beast. It freaks people out and alienates them. Relic is an album peppered with organized chaos, but you don’t want to see it until Frost. Then it makes sense. And could really turn people off. But Stevens’ fans aren’t fans of the pretty acoustic stuff; they’re fans of music. And this is a beautiful counterpoint to the preceding tracks on the album, fully showcasing music. Mind blown.

But it’s not over. END 30 is the last song on the album. It starts like so many of Stevens’ songs do; nice and peaceful; loopy. And ends as a noise track. The album takes this path through peaceful melodies, into full-throttle abrasive distortion and dissonance, and ends in a sea of noise; a sea of nothingness.