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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

#RaisingFire by James Bennett mini spoiler free review


Raising Fire is the second in a series of books by James Bennett about the modern relationship between the creatures from fairy tales and fantasy, known as the remnants and humans. A pact known as the lore is currently in place which sees one human disguised remnant from every type of mythical creature left to go about their business on the earth, whilst the rest are subdued into an eternal slumber by a magical harp. Whilst this stands, the humans agree to leave remnants to themselves, thus sustaining some semblance of peace.

Only now, the lore is threatened. Our main character, Ben Garston, the Red, heartbroken and Jack Daniels loving dragon seems to be the only remnant intent on maintaining the pact and peace on Earth as we know it. Through a variety of encounters with different cults and creatures; vampires and unicorns, it seems everyone is after the sacred harp with the power to wake all remnants from their slumber and break this historical agreement.

Full of descriptive action and a fantastic cast of creatures, the book suffers from a confusing introduction, trying to fill everyone in on events up until now in a relatively short space of time. There are lots of similes and metaphors showered throughout the story, but some are often over explained and the amount of speculation that Ben does throughout makes up a lot of the writing. I did sometimes think that the story could've been told in half the page length.

Nevertheless, the plot is a solid one, the twists by characters you don't necessarily see coming and the second half of the book really comes in to it's own and had me gripped until the conclusion, leading nicely into the third instalment. Ben's relationships with the other characters is well written. I especially enjoyed the episodes between him and the recently awoken, and very pissed of White Dragon. Their relationship reminds me a lot of that between the The Master and The Doctor in Doctor Who.

Apart from my slight annoyance at the occasionally over descriptive writing which at times feels a bit pandering - I don't need your metaphors and similes explained at every turn - the plot and characters make up for this and it is an enjoying modern take on the fantasy genre. Recommended for fans of Ben Aaronovitch, Doctor Who, Harry Potter etc. Now the premise of this universe has been set up, I have extremely high hopes for any subsequent books in this series and I'm looking forward to reading the next, Burning Ashes. 

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