Since I was little, with the radio my Gran brought me 40 years ago, I’ve listened to music in bed every night. Sometimes, it scared me (the way I jumped at the end of “Wind Up Toy” by Alice Cooper still gives me nightmares!) but even now, 30 years or so later, you hear something and think: “shit, he’s right you know.”
So, today’s “shit he’s right you know” is this from “Born Ancient” – the very last track on “Old Souls” – when Matty James Cassidy sings this: “right now, this minute, we’ve never been so old.” Cheers. You don’t care if I ever sleep again, do you?
Help is at hand, though and it is right here on “Old Souls”, because – just look at the cover – on these ten tracks, Matty James has infused each one with the spirit of rock n roll.
Now, the problem with those three words, is that rock n roll will mean something different to you than it does to me, so lets just get to the consensus that whatever it is, this has it. And plenty of it.
On “…Ancient” for example, he finds something Celtic that wouldn’t be out of place on a Ricky Warwick solo record. A kind of earthy, blue collar unbreakable spirit that, interestingly, wherever the record goes, seems to imbue the whole thing.
That is evident from the start. The harmonica drenched “Said And Done” sets a marker down as the opener. No pretension, no bull, no messing. Just some kind low slung troubadour flavours, circa Dog’s D’amour in about 1989.
This, if you had to use one word for it, is nefarious. The piano lick on the fabulous “Contradiction In Terms”, is the key moment in an absolute gem. Think Jim Jones Revue, think sweat running down the walls, and think how much fun a gig would be right now (not one of those ones on the TV, either, a proper one).
The best thing about this, is it suits someone like me with no attention span. There’s a country one, “Anodyne” (which is anything but and adds a Sax solo for good measure), while “The Art Of Falling Down” is blues, but if it was done by The Faces.
There are many strands to this half an hour. It is actually incredible how much ground this takes in, but whatever back alley dives it opens the door to, it is so well done. I haven’t mentioned the quality of the songwriting yet, which is remiss when the likes of the Nick Cave-ish “Rosary” are here. For all the fun and frolics, this could have been anything.
“Leave Your Heart At Home” is a prime example of that as it finds something Tom Petty-ish, and adds some glorious harmonies over the top, while the title track is world weary, but will not be backing down. The guitar tone he finds here, and the way the Saxophone matches it is really interesting. That he follows it up with an acoustic tinged ballad is typical of the record, in that you weren’t expecting it at all, but you should have been and “After All” is another one that seems to look back to the past, but oddly finds something fresh.
The overall feel of “Old Souls” is that of the similarly helter-skelter Urban Voodoo Machine. The feeling that it walks on the edge, could fall apart at any moment, but never does. That to me, is what rock n roll should always be. And that’s why this is a master class in the genre.
Matty James Cassidy’s new album, Old Souls (release date 28th August 2020) is officially his third album. And what an awesome album it is. I have been listening to it over and over again and I am not getting bored, on the contrary.
Old Souls is, as said above, Matty James Cassidy’s third album, but in my books it’s his fourth real album. If albums are like babies, Old Souls is the planned one. But sometimes babies are just coming without planning, and that’s exactly what happened to Matty in the spring, when The Isolation Tapeswas born. Just like that, not planned, it just happened.
But Old Souls was planned, and live gigs, too, to bring the new songs to the audience. But it didn’t quite go as planned as this invisible, nasty little thing conquered the world and still keeps hold of it. The live shows will happen sometimes in the open-ended future, but the album is here.
I don’t have the physical copy of the album at the time of writing, but when I saw the album cover first time, I was just thinking how good looking, simple, eye-catching cover design it has. I love the “stereo” marking. As an ex-record collector it couldn’t stay unnoticed by my eyes (unfortunately “ex”, but also fortunately, as collecting records can sometimes be a never ending road to a financial catastrophe). And I love the colour scheme of the cover. It’s almost perfectly matching with the colour scheme of my website! No wonder I love the cover as there are used my favourite colours. The cover design is done by Matty himself. That man has a good visual taste.
So that’s about the non-music qualities of the Old Souls album. Better move on and say a word or two about the musical side of the album, which is always a bit hard task for me with my nonexistent knowledge about music. But I definitely know what is good stuff when I hear it. And this album is “good stuff”. Okay, I am a fan but that doesn’t scupper my ability to write about this.
I have to confess that still in the spring I was a bit worried about the direction to which Matty might head with his forthcoming album. But when I heard The Isolation Tapes I was convinced that he cannot do any radical turns regarding the new album.
There has not been a deliberate change in sound to be honest, but I guess it happens naturally as you gain more experience and write about different things. There’s blues, country, folk and all sorts thrown into the mix, but to me it’s just a good rock n’ roll record.
I guess this comment from the man himself wraps up pretty much the essentials of the album. Some of the songs were already familiar to me before listening the album first time. One of those songs is the opening track ‘Said & Done’ that was released as a lyric video in July.
In this song there are all the elements that I love in Matty’s music. It is a nicely flowing song with a catchy chorus sung with a very identifiable voice that caresses ears.
The second track is called ‘Contradiction In Terms’. As you might know, my native language is not English and I didn’t know what the title meant, so I had to check it in a dictionary. Now I know; a tiny English lesson while writing an album review! Anyway, the song is easy to adopt by all the rock n’ roll lovers as it takes the listener way back into the earlier days of rock music. Piano is just the thing that you would miss if it’s not there. This song makes you move! Yeah, I hope he will do some shows in venues with a piano. That’s what I want to hear; ‘Contradiction In Terms’ live with a piano involved.
Matty is not stuck on the classic guitar, bass, drums lineup. He brought a saxophone into his live shows a couple of years ago. The saxophonist in his live shows and on the album is Bret Barnes, whom we can hear e.g. on the third track, ‘Anodyne’.
‘Anodyne’ – together with ‘Rosary’ – was published last year as a double A-side single. You can see the video that was made for ‘Anodyne’ here. I wrote a bit about making the video in my brand-new article about Matty.
But it was ‘Rosary’ that caught my interest. I fell in love with it as soon as I heard it first time. I bought the single somewhere that I cannot remember, probably at a gig as I cannot remember ordering it. But then I ordered the single again this spring! The latter one found a new home. I definitely love that song.
The other guy on this video is Matty’s brother Phil. I just wanted to let you know if you are “new” and are just taking first steps into Matty’s music.
The musicians on the album are Matty James Cassidy (vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussion and harmonica), Phil Cassidy (lead guitars, mandolin and backing vocals), Daniel Kenny (piano and organ) and Bret Barnes (saxophone). Matty’s bandmate from Tyla’s Dogs D’Amour, Gary Pennick, is playing additional guitar on ‘Down On My Luck’ and I was happy to see Ben Marsden (from my beloved The Main Grains, nowadays in The Spangles) playing lead guitar on ‘Leave Your Heart At Home’. The album is produced by Matty and Gary. Gary also mixed it.
Anyway, I want to say a bit more about a couple of songs. The above mentioned ‘Down On My Luck’ is an older song and familiar from Matty’s gigs. Acoustic version of it is on Cut To The Bone limited edition album that has been available only at live shows. I am glad that the song made it to this album, too.
Sometimes songs play out in your head like short films, you can see the colours, picture the scene and imagine the world-weary characters… maybe they are the Old Souls (from the press release).
The title track, ‘Old Souls’ is one of my top favourite tracks on the album. It has a nice reggae beat, it is dark and powerful, and it somehow stands out of the other songs – maybe because of its intensiveness and Bret’s saxophone that “steals the show”. And the sax is becoming stronger and stronger towards the end of the song. I love that.
The songs are full of feelings, they are powerful and beautiful. They differ from each other; “all sorts thrown into the mix”, as Matty said. There are up-tempo songs like ‘Said & Done’, ‘Contradiction In Terms’ and galloping ‘After All’, and slower ones like ‘The Art Of Falling Down’, mystic ‘Old Souls’ and ‘Down On My Luck’.
I can’t wait for the days when we are again free to move around and travel abroad. I really do want to experience these new songs live. The closing track, catchy ‘Born Ancient’ represents the folky side of Matty’s music. I love how the song is building up towards the end. It’s a perfect sing-a-long song; the song is in fact crying for being sung together in an intimate acoustic event. So I’d better learn it by heart.
Isn’t that just the way of the world For all you little boys and girls Got more than you need ‘Til it’s less than theirs Got nothing to believe ‘Til somebody cares
That’s how ‘Born Ancient’ ends. A perfect closing song in a fantastic album. What else can I say than go to buy it! If you have liked Matty’s previous albums, you won’t be disappointed.
1. Said & Done
2. Contradiction In Terms
3. Anodyne
4. The Art Of Falling Down
5. Rosary
6. Leave Your Heart At Home
7. Old Souls
8. Down On My Luck
9. After All
10. Born Ancient
Matty James Cassidy’s website can be found here and you can find the album and other merchandise here (Matty’s bandcamp page). You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter. All the other links can be found on the website.
My new, interview based interview can be found here.
I heard Matty James Cassidy’s music for the first time at the end of 2015. It was a song from his second album. I started listening to him and when I started my blog, I knew that one day I would write about him. He is releasing his next album on 28th August, so now is the time.
Matty James Cassidy is a Northern Irish multi-talented musician, who is based in Manchester nowadays. He grew up in County Fermanagh, in which the biggest town is Enniskillen, a town that seems to be a sort of hub for all Matty-related activities. He released his first album Last One To Die in June 2014 and before that he had already released two EPs. His second album, The Road To No Town, came out in April 2016.
As I mentioned in the intro, I heard Matty’s music for the very first time at the end of 2015. The exact time was 9th December of that year or should I say, 10th December as it was played exactly at midnight (Finnish time) on Dave Renegade’s Dark Heart of Camden radio show. I had commented on the song via Fb: “I love Matty James’s song” (at the time he was known just as “Matty James”). I know this as I checked it by listening to part of the show again and Dave mentioned what I had written. That was my very first contact with Matty’s music. And this was the song I heard, ‘Sticks & Stones’:
It took a while until I saw him on stage for the first time. Our first encounter didn’t predict well for the future. It was June 2016, Camden Rocks Festival. I was there with Dave Renegade who asked if I want to go say hello to Matty. I said yes and we went to see him before his acoustic set. I bought his second album, got a poster signed (thanks Dave, for the great poster that you brought with you for me!) and rushed to see someone else! (My excuse for this was that the band who clashed with Matty’s show was my friend’s band). Before leaving I promised I would come see him someday.
And that eventually happened. Since then I have managed to see Matty on stage several times, both at acoustic and full band shows. At the end of the article I will provide links to my photographic work from those gigs. Before the show at The Old Wine Vaults in Eastwood on 17th November 2018, Matty had a bit of time to sit down and answer some questions. After talking for about forty minutes about all kinds of pre-solo-career stuff etc. we’d merely scratched the surface and ran out of time. We continued the interview on 28th April 2019 at The Gas Lamp in Manchester.
(Please note that all the photos in this article can be enlarged and viewed in a new window by clicking the image, not only the small ones.)
Ready for the interview at The Old Wine Vaults, Eastwood.
When listening to Matty you can easily understand that there was no other path for him than being a musician. Music was present at home, even though his parents didn’t play themselves. Matty says his father introduced him to many bands and his mother had a great love for Rod Stewart, so he heard lots of music when he was a kid.
Matty started playing drums when he was about nine years old. His older brother Phil played guitar already, so they quickly started a band and in a few years began playing gigs. Matty was about twelve then. And it has carried on since, Matty notes. This guy definitely had a good upbringing!
“When we started a band at school, everyone in the band was older than me, not a lot older, two years or so, but when you are a kid, that’s a big difference”, Matty recalls. The band was together most of his school years and did hundreds of gigs, including playing with the Manic Street Preachers and some other big shows.
After school, without money or a job, Matty decided to try to do music. Around that time he was with Phil in a punkish rock band called Filthy Angels. That was the first band he sang in as well as playing bass. He also wrote most of the band’s songs. They made one album L.A.F.A. (Like a Filthy Angel) that came out in 2012. Filthy Angels never actually stopped being a band, but continuing would have been difficult as Matty moved to England. I have to say that Filthy Angels had some really great stuff and some of their songs have ended up on Matty’s later sets too. I have some personal favorites, including ‘Anti-Social Emotion’, the first song I ever heard from them, and ‘Mannequin’, written by Phil in the very early days of the band’s history.
In the early 2010s Matty made the big decision of starting a singer-songwriter solo career. But even though the paths of Filthy Angels and Matty separated, this group of people from Enniskillen have been doing a lot together music wise since then. Matty’s first two albums were recorded by John Moffatt (known as Johnny Danger in Filthy Angels). His brother Phil has been Matty’s loyal companion on records and in bands all the way ‘till the present day. “Yeah, we’ve stuck in the same little group”, Matty laughs.
How lovely that sounds; when you return home you can go to see people with whom you can do something together, like in the old days. Matty has had a sort of ideal environment, with the right people from the very beginning. He agrees totally with me. “I was very lucky in that way”, he says. He continues that there were always more experienced people around, from whom they got encouragement and support. When Matty plays on the other side of the Irish Sea, he can rely on having musicians from his old circles like Filthy Angels drummer Eden and brother Phil. (Btw, those two plays together in a Belfast based band called United Bottles).
Videos for singles
When talking about these “right people”, you have to mention another name, Ronan McGrade, photographer and videographer from Enniskillen. Matty says that he likes music videos and tries to always do a video to go with singles. When he was a kid, music videos were still played on television and they gave a visual insight into the worlds of the artists, or just a chance to see the artist, they are still an important part of music – with singles anyway, Matty says. The videos usually give a visual aspect to the lyrics and the narrative aspect is obvious, particularly in the video trilogy – ‘Sticks & Stones’ being the first part – that was created for songs on the album The Road To No Town. In an interview with The Irish World back in 2016, Matty explained that what started out as just an idea, turned “into a bit of a monster”. The other songs in the trilogy are the title track and ‘Cut With Dust’. Ronan McGrade filmed all of those videos.
Manchester, 16 September 2018. Click the image for full-sized version.
“He seems to love being involved in these projects and is a pleasure to work with”, Matty says. He praises Ronan’s skills and ideas and continues that they have lots of fun working with him. The first thing they did together was a Cadaver Club video for the song ‘Lunatic In Love’ in 2013. In the area around Enniskillen, there are plenty of abandoned old places and some beautiful countryside. All of these things have been utilized in the videos. The partnership with Ronan has continued ever since.
Matty seems to be very lucky to have someone so talented capturing his (as well as Cadaver Club’s) music into visual form. Ronan knows what works for a horror punk band like Cadaver Club and then again for a solitary troubadour like Matty. The videos are shot back home, in Enniskillen. E.g. the video for ‘Anodyne’, that is included on the forthcoming album, was done at The Linnet Inn in Boho, which is located, according to Matty (and Google Maps), in the middle of nowhere, but still not far from Enniskillen. Matty talks about making this video:
They kindly opened it up for us to make the video that day, so there was nobody else there, but then the locals started walking in thinking the pub was open and sat down for a pint at ten o’clock in the morning. I was thinking, “can you not see that something is going on here”, but it didn’t seem to bother them.
Matty continues that there was one bloke, who was not at all interested that there was this “weird guy” (Matty’s words, not mine) making a music video: “He was just standing there reading his newspaper.”
Ronan knows exactly what he wants to get, says Matty, and thus the videos are shot very quickly. That suits Matty, as he says he’s the same with recording songs. He likes to work quickly to keep things fresh and close to the original idea.
If you skipped the video for ‘Sticks & Stones’ at the beginning of the article, you should scroll back up and watch it as well.
And what is this Cadaver Club that was mentioned above? It is another band that Matty and Phil are involved in. But no more about Cadaver Club, as I really do hope to write a proper story just about them one day.
Phil and Matty, Warehouse 23, Wakefield, 31 March 2018. Click the image for full-sized version.
But how is it to work with your brother? “It’s always been easy, really; we are quite lucky that way”, says Matty, and continues that they don’t have any problems. “We’ve always got on really well.” Phil happened to be nearby, so I asked him his take on the brotherly collaboration. ”Oh, it’s a nightmare, really awful, it’s terrible”, he laughs, but continues then more seriously that it’s fun. “We both play in bands with other people, but we’ve always had a band on the go were we play together.” Besides understanding a brother more so than you would a stranger, Phil notes one more positive thing: “When you are in a band with other people you have to be nice, but when you are with your brother you can say what you are thinking. It’s good, I like it.”
Besides his busy solo career and occasional Cadaver Club commitments, Matty plays bass in Tyla’s Dogs D’Amour (see my photo collection of a show in Wakefield in December 2017 here). He comments on this:
It’s a nice way to spend your time really, in a band playing music you love. I have always loved Tyla’s song writing, so it’s great to get to play those songs. And as I do so much of my own stuff, it’s nice to just be the bass player sometimes. I don’t have to worry, just play the bass and that’s it. We certainly enjoy ourselves.
Fab Cafe, Manchester, 16 September 2018.
All by myself – music with DIY attitude
Matty is a fantastic singer with a deep, dark low voice – that I really love – and a multi-instrumentalist who plays most of the instruments on his records himself. At acoustic shows he accompanies himself with a guitar and mouth organ and at electric full band shows he plays bass because he has brother Phil to play guitar. However, Matty’s first instrument was drums and he still plays drums in Cadaver Club. So I had to ask, if playing drums has a special place in his heart. “Definitely”, he replies. He says that he loves playing drums, but has never been into the singing and drumming thing, as he put it. Naturally, he plays drums on his records too. “I have never stopped playing drums.”
I didn’t choose the subheading for this chapter by accident. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers [R.I.P. Walter Lure, we heard the sad news just before publishing this article] were not the only band who recorded a song by this title, but that’s the song I had in mind. The American 70s punk influence could be heard in the Filthy Angels’ music, but has this punk mentality followed Matty to his solo career? He thinks so.
Punk is more an attitude than a musical style; the DIY attitude. Matty loves the freedom and independence of recording songs by himself, playing most of the instruments, even though, he adds, he loves having other people play on his records as well. For example, on the new album Matty is responsible for vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussion and harmonica and then he has other people playing lead guitars and other instruments (more about the new record in another article). Matty says that this is quite an easy way for him to work. It’s kind of a habit to do it this way, but he is always open to different ideas too.
Manchester, 28 April 2019. Click the image for full-sized version.
Matty’s DIY attitude led him to start his own label Pirate Heart Records (Cargo Records being the distributor) in 2012, in order to release the Filthy Angels album. Pirate Heart Records is a home for all the things he is doing. Matty really likes to do things by himself.
I guess it’s time to talk a bit about the music. Rogue folk rock ‘n’ roll is Matty’s own term for his music. It is in fact a very appropriate word – when I finally, with the help of a dictionary, managed to understand the word rogue – to depict the essential features of Matty’s songs, whether it’s the lyrics or the whole package you get. There is this element of romantic vagabond style with tattered hats and clothes – even though Matty’s appearance is far from shabby, quite the opposite – wandering along country roads and lonely alleys playing a guitar with broken strings or picking a harmonica out of a pocket to cheer up the melancholic mood (okay, I know I am wrong with the “melancholic” part, but I still like this idea). I think that in the song ‘The Road To No Town’ the lyrics describe quite well what this rogue folk is:
Well…
I come from the south of God knows where With stories to chill your bones Where the whiskey runs right through the town And the streets are painted gold Well we fight when we drink and we drink when we fight And we fight for no reason at all And the women here could break a man And the men are ten feet tall
The road to no town, that’s where I’m bound
“Like you said, ‘The Road To No Town’ and ‘Gunpowder’ have a sort of roguish quality to them … But to me, it’s all based on the same stuff; it’s all three chord rock ‘n’ roll with different approaches”, Matty says. He finds it difficult to describe, as he is not stuck on one certain musical “style”. “Some stuff is kind of straight up rock ‘n’ roll, there is punkier stuff, folky stuff, Irish influenced stuff with fiddlers and mandolins.” Matty continues that he always struggled to describe it, but it’s all based on three chord rock ‘n’ roll. There are country influences too. This spring Matty released a digital country music influenced cover EP called 4 x 4 x 1 that includes a real country classic ‘The Race Is On’, written by Don Rollins and performed by numerous artists. He did that project together with his bandmate from Tyla’s Dogs D’Amour, Gary Pennick.
Briefly, Matty’s music is rock ‘n’ roll with influences from different musical styles, however, folk might be the most dominant influence. And then again, what’s folk? Is it something that Bob Dylan – one of the artists that Matty mentions when asked about artists/bands who might influenced him as a songwriter – did back in the sixties, or the folk music of different nations or… Besides Dylan, Matty also mentions names like Tom Waits, The Pogues and The Rolling Stones.
But yes, rogue folk is the package you get when you attend a Matty James Cassidy show. I think it’s still valid today.
But what about the lyrics…
There are love songs, songs about relationships, but they are not happy. That was my thought about Matty’s songs when we talked in Manchester during our second interview session. That made Matty laugh.
Matty at Gullivers, Manchester, 18 November 2018.
Maybe I read his lyrics totally wrong… Or maybe not, as he tells me that he likes to leave the lyrics – that can be personal or just something he has observed, or just about moods and feelings – quite open. Thus, he gives people a chance to form their own ideas about the songs and is not very willing to explain what he was thinking while writing a particular song. Matty doesn’t want to ruin people’s interpretations by saying, no, no, it’s not about that! One thing that attracted Matty to songwriting and songs in general is how a song can mean different things to different people. “I think that’s why people have always enjoyed listening to music; everyone can get something different out of it.”
Once the song is written and recorded and let out into the world, it belongs to the listeners, whatever they take out of it, as Matty puts it. That idea is in fact very beautiful. “It’s very hard to put into words what your words mean”, he laughs.
But it was much easier for him to explain how the writing process happens. Firstly there is an idea of what the song might be about. Matty says that most of the time it’s a very humble beginning of a title and a melody for the chorus, before working out the lyrics. The rest of the song develops when you start recording it and see what it needs, Matty explains. I don’t know anything about songwriting, but it seems that you have the same building blocks (sort of) in another kind of writing process (minus the chorus part). I mean, a great book title popped into my head and I realized that I have to do something with it. I made a book. You just need “a very small seed that grows into something else” (Matty’s words).
Productive man
Matty obviously needs a flowerbed for all of these song seeds, as he is an extremely productive, hard-working man. In the spring he utilized the forced “staying home” time by writing a whole albums worth of brand new songs (well, one of them was released before, surprisingly aptly named ‘Uncertain Times’). And not just any kind of songs, but fantastic stuff. The Isolation Tapes (featuring again Gary Pennick) was released on 22nd May 2020. If you had to find one good thing to come out of the COVID-19 situation, for me it’s that release. You can read my review here.
One of the songs on The Isolation Tapes is called ‘Someone’. It was one of the songs that I paid attention to already on the first listening round. It has catchy melody and – what I realized only later – words that are quite meaningful for me. You can listen to the song by clicking the arrow below.
A special digital single version of the song was released with all the profits to be donated to Samaritans. The single’s lovely artwork by Kevin McHugh (surprise, surprise, also singer in Cadaver Club) was also printed on now already sold out merchandise to help raise more funds. I fell totally in love with the image and it’s message – we all need someone – and because of the good cause, I bought a mug even though my cupboards are full of mugs.
Manchester, 28 April 2019. Click the image for full-sized version.
Matty’s third “proper” (I would say though, “planned third”) album Old Souls is out on 28th August. We have already had the chance to hear some songs from it and believe me, it is awesome. (To be honest, I’ve been listening to it a lot while writing this and preparing to do the album review).
Last year Matty published a double A-side 7” single with the songs ‘Rosary’ and the earlier mentioned ‘Anodyne’. Both songs are on the new album. But why a double A-side single? Matty says that he struggles with the B-side thing unless it’s a live track or something like that. He continues that when you make these decisions yourself, it’s very hard to decide one song for the A-side and one song for the B-side, as they are both good songs. So that’s why it’s a double A-side. He also liked the idea of creating something physical for people who still like to have a physical item. (I definitely belong to those people!). He continues that he knows that “a lot of people may just listen to music on Spotify and all the rest and that’s great too, but it’s nice to have something to hold in your hands”.
We are living in strange times. Matty had planned to go on the road after releasing the new album, but the live shows have had to be postponed until… who knows. But they are worth waiting for. I have attended Matty’s tiny acoustic shows as well as full band shows – with two different lineups. But his latest band with Phil Cassidy on guitar, Ace Carlton on drums and Bret Barnes on saxophone has been more or less permanent during the last couple of years and as Matty says, it’s a proper band rather than people just backing him.
I really do look forward to his live gigs. I have travelled a couple of times to England (or changed travel plans) to attend his shows. Last year we here in Finland even started to think about getting him and the band over to Finland. But obviously nothing happened. Matty has played acoustic gigs in the continental Europe, and has expressed a hope to get the band over too. Let’s hope that these two nuisances (COVID-19 and Brexit) won’t ruin things forever.
Manchester, 28 April 2019.
The last words belongs to Matty:
I am very lucky to get to do all the different things that I do and I just hope that it carries on. It’s just great to be able to do something creative with your days. Just lucky, really.
Watched the video? Good stuff huh. It’s all there – guitars, cool threads, black leather, kohl eyeliner, cards, a gravelly rumble of a voice and an attitude that can’t be faked or taught. Matty James Cassidy and ‘Old Souls’, his debut album, is an effortless masterclass in all those things that make rock ‘n roll a thing, no, the thing worth dying for.
Cassidy is a true troubadour, born and raised in Northern Ireland (where his formative years were spent gigging in every bar and club he could blag his way into) and now based in Manchester. He also has a pretty cool day job (we’ll get to that later). ‘Old Souls’ is a labour of love – written, produced and mostly played by the man himself, so, enough background waffle, let’s get to the music.
The album bursts from the gates with a killer one-two. Just over four minutes of punk-injected rock ‘n roll, wailing harp, uber-cool backing vocals and glam rock stop-start riffage. The guitars are front and center, elbowing any reservations out of the way. It’s chrome-plated spit ‘n sawdust, 100% proof rock. It’s rowdy, scrappy, scruffy and, needless to say, frikkin’ glorious.
The album then takes it’s foot off the gas, takes a breath, and starts to stretch out. A few other styles begin to creep in. There are a couple of slower songs. Not ballads, they’re too tough for that, too broken, too whiskey-sodden. It’s country blues, punk folk. There are bruised, barroom love songs, wrapped in lonesome sax. There’s a nice, loose Stonesy feel to them, reminiscent of The Quireboys and, mostly, The Dogs D’Amour.
Oh yeah, the day job. Cassidy plays the bass for the current incarnation of Tyla’s ragged crew. So yeah, his DNA is clearly present in these songs, in those slower, all-alone-at-the-bottom-of-a-bottle-wonder-where-you-are-now laments. And damn good they are too. Faces good – sentimental but not, y’know, wussy.
But, above all this, this album rocks. Joyously, riotously, and, most importantly, coolly. There’s a Southern gothic menace to it all. Johnny Cash is nodding his approval, the whole sin and salvation thang is here in abundance, the devil looming over Cassidy’s shoulder. ‘Leave Your Heart At Home’ sees The Clash and The Dogs dukin’ it out outside a riverfront Belfast bar…in the rain. ‘After All’, meanwhile, tears it up, it’s badass, over-amplified rockabilly blues. Quiffs, tatts, smokes and shades that never get taken off, they’re all here.
There are some great curveballs too. The title track has elements of reggae and dub, except with really big guitars. It’s totally unique and proves that Cassidy is perfectly willing to go down some dark, strange alleyways. It’s a classy abstract groove. We finish with the awesome ‘Born Ancient’ (‘Old Souls’ – there’s a bit of a theme here) and it’s acoustic Celtic punk. Mandolins and bodhrans join the fray before wall-shaking drums kick things off into (another) epic chorus while a distorted guitar takes the place of what would have been a penny whistle. And there we are, 10 songs in just under 40 minutes, just as nature intended.
This is outlaw music is what it is. Rock, blues, folk, punk. Any fellow outsiders out there – pirates, cowboys, highwaymen, holy fools, loners, drinkers, writers, fuck-ups – give this a listen, your radar will twitch. He’s one of us and ‘Old Souls’ is as good as outlaw music gets.
