(The Dear Future Collective)

www.dearfuturecollective.com

There are some artists who will likely never purvey an upward glance, no many how much sentiment they indulge or what circumstances inspire their creativity.  These individuals - Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Jeff Buckley and Tom Waits being prime examples -- have established such success with their overcast designs, than any hint of daylight might subvert their MO and make them all but unrecognizable.

Matthew Ryan isn't nearly as well known as these kindred spirits, but his ongoing series of twilight ruminations over the course of a dozen or so albums have established him as one of the foremost purveyors of downcast deliberation.  An insightful artist with an intuitive ability to capture mood and emotion, he writes dirge-like melodies that hang like a shroud, each draped in a dense atmospheric overlay. In that regard, Dear Lover varies little from that template, a haunting, eerily beautiful dissertation on the intricacies of intimacy. A song cycle of sorts, it finds Ryan contemplating a scenario that sprung from an emergency trip to the hospital and culminated in a series of confessional encounters.  Hushed and numbing, it finds songs such as "The World Is...," "We Are Snowmen," "PS," and the title track conveying a sense of naked introspection and an air of despair that's fraught with vulnerability and uncertainty. 

Yet, while the songs often begin on a sparse or tentative note, most build and billow with ethereal ambiance.  Think U2 fraught with anguish.  Ryan's tattered vocals combined with this undulating instrumentation make for a pensive if compelling endeavor... and a consistently mesmerizing one at that.

Standout Tracks: "We Are Snowmen," "The World Is...," "PS" LEE ZIMMERMAN