“Many Years in the Making” is both the title of the first single from Syd Matters’ latest, A Gospel of Some Sort, and literally true since their last work, Brotherocean, was released back in 2010. Yet it feels like they just stepped out of the studio and into a Paris cafe for a break, then got right back to making their unique brand of baroque folk, laced heavily with electronica.
In the intervening years, the French band’s frontman, Jonathan Morali, has been busy writing soundtracks for film, television, and the stage, and has gained wide attention for his music for the popular video game Life Is Strange. He has also spent time reflecting on the human condition, and here is a set of dark lyrical musings on isolation, belonging, grief, and loss. Carried by Morali’s intimate, vulnerable voice, the accompanying music alternates between simple guitar arrangements and synthesiser loops with rich choral embellishments composed and performed by Morali, with Pauline Denize, Rémi Alexandre, Clément Carle, and Olivier Marguerit.
After a church-choir vocal introduction, the affecting opening track, “Armageddon Time”, a dream-like story set in a church, evokes the album title: “Is it a gospel of some sort / Like we’re in a church.” The narrator is an outsider watching the proceedings, “hiding behind the altar”, studying the worshipers. When the priest says “something about the devil”, the voices stop dramatically on that word, before the priest begins berating the narrator, threatening damnation as the building music reaches its climax.
Near the end, the narrator refers to “The Dunwich Horror”, a short story by H. P. Lovecraft published in 1929 in Weird Tales Magazine, which can serve as a companion to the entire album. In the story, a decrepit, doomed family of outcasts threatens a New England town. Similarly, the record references existential destruction, opening with “Armageddon Time” and closing with “Nuclear”. The outsider in Lovecraft’s story is the despised, freakish Wilbur Whateley, who steals a forbidden text and triggers disaster. He can be compared to Morali’s many alienated narrators. Throughout the album, gothic horror references appear, and a melancholic tone prevails.
Nick Drake‘s haunting style is an often-cited influence that, though less obvious, remains clear on this record. Its sound, mostly acoustic guitar-based, with keyboards and occasional woodwinds adding colour, and drums and bass used as separate instruments rather than as a rhythm section, reminded me of Genesis from the “Selling England by the Pound” days. The song structures develop as movements with vague tonal centres that change tempo and time but entirely serve the story being told.
While the melodies remain cold and dissonances linger, occasionally they bloom. In “In the Darkness”, the grief-filled story of the loss of a child, there is real beauty as the song breaks into the words “I lost the beauty when I close my eyes”. “Many Years in the Making” represents the band at their most melodic, highlighted by an optimistic bridge built on warm synth pulses.
Fans should enjoy A Gospel of Some Sort. Although it requires some patience, Syd Matters continue to offer music that repays careful listening and offers insight into the struggles of alienated individuals. Unlike the nihilism of “The Dunwich Horror”, these songs offer solace in the present moment, where, despite our immediate connectivity, many people feel very alone.