Mat Zo – Self Assemble

Originally published on Alt Media

In my opinion an album should fulfil two main criteria – firstly, it should take the listener on a journey throughout its entirety, and secondly, each individual track should feel as if it is a small piece that fits into the larger puzzle picture created in the listener’s mind.

Unfortunately Mat Zo’s latest offering, Self Assemble, fails to meet that second criteria. Instead it feels more like a 45-minute DJ set through a range of different styles rather than a meticulously curated single body of work by a musician.

The album opens up with funky electro-indie-pop with initial tracks ‘The Enemy’ and ‘Sinful’, before moving into house tunes that one would expect to hear in a club, then the listener gets driving heavy bass tracks, such as ‘Ruffneck Bad Boy’ (which I’m sure will be on heavy rotation in nightclubs upon its release) and then finally closing out with electronic dance music that you can expect to hear on the music festival circuit over the next twelve months.

The quality of the production on each individual track is great, but overall Self Assemble feels disjointed and would perhaps have been better served releasing as a number of shorter EP’s, each catering to a specific style.

**1/2

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