Jonathan Morali’s band has always produced timeless compositions. Unsurprisingly, “A Gospel of Some Sort” breaks sixteen years of silence without deviating from its atmospheric trajectory with infinite nuances.
Six years have passed since Syd Matters’ last album, Brotherocean (2010). On the scale of a band, almost a disappearance. Yet Morali’s project has never truly left the landscape. His songs continued to resonate in our memories, while the singer-songwriter explored film music.
The soundtrack for the video game Life Is Strange (2015), cult for an entire generation of fans, breathed new life into his repertoire. With A Gospel of Some Sort, the studio silence ends without fanfare, as if nothing had been interrupted.
The Ghosts of Nick Drake and Talk Talk
We rediscover that dreamy, melancholic folk that had made Syd Matters one of the most striking revelations at the 2002 CQFD contest of Les Inrockuptibles. But something has changed. The music has darkened, the outlines have thickened. The arpeggios still converse with electronic textures, in an aesthetic that recalls Nick Drake’s pastoral grace as well as the mental landscapes of Talk Talk (during the Laughing Stock era).
From Armageddon Time, a fragile chorus and a few piano notes establish a liturgical contemplation. Many Years in the Making, the first spark of this long-awaited return, moves forward with disarming clarity under spellbinding arpeggios.
The Devil then suspends time in an infinite sweetness, before In the Darkness unfolds one of the album’s most beautiful moments: a slow, almost imperceptible ascent that grips the heart until the final epiphany. Then Nuclear closes the album on a twilight ballad where doomsday and the promise of renewal mingle.
The Delicacy of the Early Days Remains Intact
What strikes is how time has shaped this music. The delicacy of the early days remains intact, but it has taken on a new gravity. The years spent composing for film have left their mark: a sense of silence, space, and tension that threads through each track without ever sacrificing emotion.
At a moment when many comebacks replay their own legends, A Gospel of Some Sort takes a rarer path: turning the passing of time into musical material. Jonathan Morali does not resurrect Syd Matters; he breathes new life into it. And he signs the most accomplished album of his career.
A Gospel of Some Sort (Creature/Bigwax). Release on September 4. In concert at the Olympia, Paris, on November 17.
