Scott Matthews - Restless Lullabies (2023)

Restless Lullabies is a reincarnation of Scott Matthews’ 2020 album New Skin, arguably his finest work to date. Here, devoid of electronics, it resurfaces in a more organic form that, accompanied by a variety of different guitars (acoustic, archtop jazz, baritone acoustic, Spanish and guitalele), throws his songs and, at times, fine sandpapery vocals into relief in the way audiences experience him live, nakedly exposing the sense of catharsis that runs through the album.

Maintaining the same running order but the numbers generally shorter, it opens with the title track, watery guitar notes rippling like a waterfall behind his laid-back, soaringly pure delivery with the song’s theme of becoming comfortable with our metamorphoses (“Shedding life we were draped in/Flying high we look down/As I hold you close”).

Ruminative fingerpicked guitar winds its way through Wait In The Car with its falsetto notes and background vocal flourishes, piano arriving midway, another number rooted in change and the uncertainty with which we face it (“will fate take us far?/To a place full of stars/Or do we wait in the car?/Forever wondering how/We never made it out of town”).

Touching on fragility, compassion and support in times of need (“I bend, I bow more weak than strong/Carefully the fragile break, tender from the night, I’m her fear/I’m miles from moonlit sky, guiding her blind”), in My Selfless Moon, a drone wash gives way to circling guitar notes, his voice again taking falsetto flight as piano notes add colour behind the chorus’s multi-tracked vocals.

Anniversary, a duet with American soul-jazz singer Krystle Warren, is a bittersweet romantic song about love, loss and memory (“He raised a glass to hours past/Remembering someone, once a flower/Unsurpassed”) that mingles sadness and ineffable joy (“She is momentary/They are solitary/Yearly he’ll meet her there/She whispers profoundly/So glad you found me/April’s in the air/With the same old kiss on her head/Dancing alive on their anniversary”). It again floats on guitar and keyboard clouds, flowing into the quietly picked, delicately sung The Tide, which engages with the ebb and flow of tidal motion in its emotional eddies (“Solitary in the sea marooned/The push and pull is tireless/Child-like it wears me out… Waves become a way/To wash away the pain and doubt”).

To classical-sounding arpeggio guitar notes that softly echo the imagery of rain in the lyrics, Morning is a slow drift through doubts and reserve (“I am somehow stalling/To make a commitment to you”), again speaking of trying to deal with pain, clinging to the sparks to get through a new day (“our saving grace/Is what we reclaimed from embers so tired/A glimpse of a flame still on fire”), the new dawn symbolic of renewal and rebirth (“Morning’s the eyes of a woman looking through her man/Morning’s the child with a dream we confide in/Morning’s forgiveness in your hand”).

Ghosts of picked guitar and tentative piano notes shimmer in the background of Autopilot, where he sings of “Finding a space in the dark/When you’re lonely/Hurting like hell in your heart”, trying to escape a life lived detached from the world (“Life can feel so remote/Lost in the hood of my overcoat”) but with a deep emotional connection to another (“It’s your love that I’m depending on”) as a grounding anchor.

Once more ethereally floating on understated guitar and piano, the dreamy Our Time conjures the calm after the storm, a moment of perfection to hold and treasure (“It’s happening now with you/Our laughter is laced/With infinite smiles for two…We’ll reminisce this page/When life’s perfect flower bloomed/This time will never be erased/Hold my hand in this perfect place/We frame now on our wall/Where we gave it all”) that ebbs away on solitary piano tinkles.

Sung echoingly unaccompanied with an enfolding intimacy, Intruders on Earth captures that moment when the two of you are the only ones alive in that moment (“like strays/In a timeless paradise/And we’re fed on aimless wonder/I’m cage-less by your side/I feel immortal/In the slow motion snow”) where anxiety and regret are on hold and there’s “No cause for alarm in a world asleep/No mourning for the life we froze”.

It ends with The Light and what sounds to be distant waves before the pensive guitar notes backdrop the images of the sea (“Our hands become oars/In a lifeboat that once was our bed”); a number about salvaging a relationship (“I gave up believing/As I often do/It’s just you and me/And our child to feed”) and facing whatever may come (“Embraced in a storm/With our hands clasped/And braced for the fight”) and the affirmation that “I think I can make out the light/Now I won’t stop believing/While your eyes cry for meaning/The clouds are conceding/I love you”. A whole different, more intimate listening experience to New Skin, but note for note, every bit its equal.