Review: Matty T Wall 'Live Down Underground'

Matty T Wall

By David Bulley

People of a certain age should be warned before sitting down to listen to Live Down Underground by Matty T Wall, because this album is a time machine in disguise. One minute you are sitting in 2022 and the next you are in a grimy Philadelphia bar in 1983 listening to the guy who is on before or after George Thorogood.

In all the best ways, from tone to lyrical style to bright and insistent rock drums over slick blues guitar, this album is gonna bring you back. Way back. Matty’s Gibson ES sounds like he went back in time as well to steal Stevie Ray Vaughan’s pedalboard. If he doesn’t have a Vox Wah and an 80s Ibanez tube screamer, he fooled me. This is a live album, and you can hear the audience clapping and cheering, which is a little bit weird because there are not many people there. The band, however, plays as if it’s 40,000 in a stadium.

Wall’s opener and single from the album, “Broken Heart Tattoo” opens with a screaming guitar and flourishes in different directions as if to tell the audience, “I can play so you better pay attention.” And he’s right. He can play. This track alternates between a clean tone that just accentuates the lyrics to switching on that tube screamer and ripping solos. The lyrics are spoken, and the music is driving. The opener also sets the tone for an homage of an album, a tribute to classic rock/blues without being derivative, a nod to the greats, while firmly establishing his own chops.

“Slideride”, the second song on the album is aptly named as a wild ride into another sub-genre of rock/blues. Imagine if a straight-up rockabilly player just grabbed someone else’s setup and played through a mountain of fuzz and overdrive and over a delicious rock drummer (Ric Whittle).

“Walk Out the Door” is an original but this could have been a Stevie Ray cover. From the slick tone to the Texas-style blues to the very clever line “Wah Wah Wah Wah Walk out the door” combined with the subtle use of a wah pedal, proves Matty has a sense of humor as well as serious chops. The instrumental “Scorcher” is blistering fast Texas chicken pickin’ as wild and fun as turning a honky-tonk on its ear with gritty rock-toned goodness.

The song, “This is Real” takes a different approach, with the guitar playing as sweet and clean as if Matty, on that trip back in time, also got ahold of SRV’s Dumble. The bass line (Leigh Miller) is funky as hell, which serves as a brilliant counterpoint to the soaring vocals and sweet guitar. This solo is the most dynamic and narrative of the album. He takes us on a walk, gets us lost, and brings up home feeling as sad as the lost love but as funky as possible.

The album at times pay homage to 70s gods of blues rock like the Rolling Stones, and even Led Zeppelin, tones and a couple of licks here and there let you know he’s spent some time (like every guitarist) listening to Jimi Hendrix. This is why when we get to the song “Voodoo Chile,” you keep expecting that slick, funky, insistent, irreverent lick.

We keep expecting Matty to chop down a mountain with the edge of his hand! We want it. And we never get it, as he does his own thing through fourteen minutes of brilliance. Is it “Voodoo Child”? Or is it his song coincidentally named “Voodoo Child”? Well, the vibe, the tones, the attitude, are all there. It is “Voodoo Child” but it’s also Matty T Wall’s very own version. This track, where he teases us with melody choices, near licks, and a stunning bass solo is my favorite for its audacity. And after the journey, just when you might be thinking it’s not THE “Voodoo Child,” he sings the lyric straight on the melody.

“Sophia’s Strut” feels like a two-minute nod to the late great EVH, and “Smile” is a sweet and hopeful instrumental, the best way to leave an audience both satisfied and wanting more. And yes, we want more.

Listen “This is Real”