Matt Maltese - Krystal Vinyl LP New 2019

1. Krystal
2. Curl Up & Die
3. Human Remains
4. When You Wash Your Hair
5. Jupiter
6. Intolewd

New album from Matt Maltese on new label, sevenfoursevensix. Krystal, the second album from Matt Maltese, is a breakup record, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s a reckoning with self, a mental stock check, a re-evaluation and a shedding of an old skin.

Krystal is from a period of quiet contemplation, an album that sees him “daydreaming about and grieving the important people and moments I’ve had in my life, and getting swamped in the details”. Krystal prioritises openness and freedom. Highlight Tall Buildings is a hazy, swaying thing that sounds more 1969 than 2019, and is all the more wonderful for it. The sprightly Tokyo, meanwhile, invites the listener even closer, as he sings: “If you rip open my heart you’d see a whole lotta’ blood and arteries / But if I’m talking romantically, you’d see space for you”. Then there’s Curl Up And Die, the album’s emotional centrepiece. A gorgeous, reflective post-mortem on a relationship, it sees him ruminating on a time when “I worshipped the ground you walked on / I’d cut off my ear for you / I worshipped the towel you dried on / I’d kill all my friends for you.”