Matt Hudgins
Better Days Are Coming
Athens, GA
(Self-Released)
“Songsmith’s mission to find hope through trials, struggles”
“Better Days are Coming,” the title track off this deep and riveting album of prose and promise by Matt Hudgins, is filled with color and metaphor, and chock-full of the honest brutality of getting through tough days and years.
Hudgins sings with sincerity and a humble heart – “Better days are living says the mother to the child, when she wonders where the next meal’s coming from, every day’s a battle, they just take ’em as they come.”
The album is simply produced and mixed in a lo-fi manner, as Hudgins haunts at the helm, vocally. The acoustic guitars are beautifully orchestrated, and the backing harmony vocals give it great color and balance. Recorded with the hiss of audio tape in the room, Better Days Are Coming features songs with both strong and dark themes of love and loss, insomnia and gun control, battling through life’s tough struggles, days and nights of jail time, dying young, the sirens of police cars, sons and daughters of the South, God, souls and seeking mercy, and just about everything else you can pack into a brilliant singer/songwriter album.
The chords and arrangements are simple and immediate, bringing forth the most of emotion and meaning as each line of verse echoes from the stereo into the listener’s soul. It’s a delightful listen by an Athens music legend, worth revisiting throughout the year, season to season. Think of it as a 10-song album of Southern lullabies, ready and available to ponder along with, and calming and easy enough to fall asleep to when needed…
Mixed and Mastered by Drew Vanderberg at Chase Park
Recorded to 4-track cassette at House of Horrors