Review Summary: Five personal stories on mental health, talking and how to make a change.
What do you do when you don’t know how to talk about how you feel? What if there was a set of songs that could show you one way to reach out. Gray Matta’s Shadow of Fire: Short Stories volume 1 is a perfect narrative arc that talks through dark depression and pulls you, quite literally, through to the final track, “The Other Side”.
This EP lets Gray Matta’s wide-ranging talent shine. In just five tracks we hear honest bars about the artist’s own battles with mental health, set in his self-penned and produced orchestral, electronic and sung mixes.
A Scroobius Pip-like tone draws you into a world of desperation [Peace], and asks you to “set aside your pride and find your own solution” [Open Up The Blinds]; an encouragement to find your counsel and seek help in your darkest of times. This work is a beacon in showing young men that it’s okay to need help, and that when you find it, things can be better. There’s “no wrong or right, no expectations.”
Ultimately Gray Matta wants to show you there is always a way through the darkness, and the final line of the last track becomes a mantra, “I can make it through to the other side,” which builds to a crescendo of new voices; a collective hook that really does drag you through.
All proceeds from this EP will go the mental health charity, Mind.
