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MATT LANGLEY: Featherbones

Matt Langley is a one-man Wilco – though to be fair, he has some great musicians helping him out on this album. ‘Featherbones’ is part country honk, part Chris Isaak, and all extremely catchy. Langley won the APRA Best NZ Country Song award last year for 7:13, which appears here, and I reckon that was a well-deserved win. Over the course of the full-length album, Langley struts through a few different types of country / country rock, semi-Jimmy Page acoustic strummery, and the vocals are great all the way. The start of Let It Go Now kind’a sounds like Eels, but happier –that’s not what you expect from a ‘country’ album! Langley has a good delivery, smooth with just a little edge, and always in tune, including the harmonies. The songs are so good that I found myself jamming away on my unplugged Telecaster as I listened. Recorded in various studios in Wellington and Dunedin, released on Hometown Records, with distribution through Ode/Rhythmethod, do yourself a favour and get a copy.