Album Review: As Real As You Want It To Be

From Dunedin, but currently residing in Japan, Matt Langley is an artist who has already made an impressive impact on the New Zealand music scene, and with new album As Real As You Want It To Be, he’s certainly poised to consolidate that position. Matt is an acclaimed and awarded songwriter, and has a weighty list of artists he has collaborated with, toured with, or supported, including names like Lindon Puffin, The Eastern, Martin Phillipps, Sir Dave Dobbyn, and Head like A Hole. His songwriting is influenced by a wide range of genres: folk, rock, pop, and country, but on this album he has evolved even further to include electronic elements that contribute to the overall baroque pop/rock feel.

As Real As You Want It To Be is a delightful journey from start to finish, openers Bruised Fruit and Disintegration both wonderfully soft and floaty, beautifully textured and layered, timeless songs that could easily come from any decade, from the 60’s onwards. Waking Dream has a somewhat darker feel, and fantastically low-fi synth percussion, and a palpable tension in its dynamics. 

A Design For The Rain creates the feeling of being adrift on the world’s fluffiest clouds, and I love the poignancy of the line “You can always go home, but there’s no going back”, lovely stuff. If you like love songs, Under The Skin is the song for you, its sweet beauty making it an absolute treat. Cat Amongst The Pigeons has another low-fi intro, sparse and intriguing, continuing to demonstrate how masterfully he paints with sound, deftly layering stroke upon thoughtful stroke. Antidote takes the listener for a wander through different dynamics, before the mellow spacey-ness of Forest For The Trees. 

Give Love A Go has a lilting waltz feel, uplifting with its message of positivity and hope, before Shut It Down brings the album to a close, softly fading to silence.

Every song on this album is a finely crafted gem, with superb attention to detail. Enjoyment can only increase, upon subsequent listens. Excellent work.