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"From out of the dark"

From Out Of The Dark

From out of the dark is a collection of 6 songs finished during the infamous Covid lockdown of 2020, drawing musical influences from many different genres and based on different themes close to my heart.

Some with a narrative, others about how I felt a particular junction in life, playing music, writing and recording songs has been a great outlet for me and helped me deal with and express myself in a productive fashion.

With no single genre over the six songs I decided to put them out as From out of the dark, to show how something good can come from the darkness. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed making them.

I appreciate so much all the friends and family who have helped critique these tracks ready for public consumption. Thanks also to my younger sister, Hannah, for providing her vocal talents and lyric writing on two of the songs.

Please listen below and follow me on all of my social networks using the links above.

Matt x

#ChasingEmbers by James Bennett mini book review


Chasing Embers is an excellent modern time fantasy novel by James Bennett. Ben Garston, our leading character is an emotional yet hardened soul, living in a version of modern day Earth as an ancient magical pact that has lasted 800 years begins to deteriorate, causing Ben no end of grief and unforeseen encounters with an interesting, detailed and varied array of characters.

The story is steeped in pseudo medieval history and ancient Egyptian mythology, and see's Ben traversing the globe in an effort to save humanity, his human ex girlfriend and if he has chance and the time, possibly himself.

A cast consisting of Fae, witches, knights, dragons, humans and soothsayers, it's not always apparent at first glance what their intentions are, leading Ben into some difficult situations which only weigh down his emotional state further, nursing himself back to some semblance of normality with the magical elixir that is Jack Daniels.

The variety of locations, characters and originality of the story really sucked me in to this novel, and it feels written to a similar standard as those of the Ben Aaronovitch novels, the Rivers Of London series and I can't wait for the next one in the series.

The story's not complicated, but is enriched with Bennett's seemingly effortless talent for description, wielding metaphors and similes as though his pen were a sword. My only qualm with this is that sometimes the story drags, when we just want to discover what is about to occur next you have to pursue through pages of description first.

This didn't deteriorate from my enjoyment of the book and I'm really looking forward to the next one. I'd recommend this to fans of Tom Holt, Ben Aaronovitch and to those who grew up on things like Potter. An excellent mystical adventure in modern times. Great stuff.


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