Matthew Logan Vasquez

Matthew Logan Vasquez.

Matthew Logan Vasquez is feeling optimistic.
That’s not necessarily apparent the first time you spin his new full
length solo album.
Each track on
Matthew Logan Does What He Wants
feels urgent and intense. Impatient
land
lords, financial woes and other frustrations fan the agitation embedded in the
opening track, “Same.” Isolation darkens the brooding images of “From Behind The
Glass.” Death takes a bow on “The Fighter.” Vasquez can’t help but juxtapose the
celebration of
“Fatherhood” with a lament that “we ain’t got the money to pay the
hospital.”
The music enhances this impression. As fans of his work with Delta Spirit and Middle
Brother know well, Vasquez knows how to fuse passion and poetry in his writing and
then igni
te this volatile mix with extraordinarily expressive singing. In this sense he
stands as a peer and a worthy successor to those who influenced him as an up and coming artist

Neil Young, Kurt Cobain, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed and others often
mentioned, none o
f them known for their upbeat, sunny lyrics.
“My point is that life is a struggle,” Vasquez continues. “But how can you have optimism
and hope if you don’t have something negative? Context is what makes it meaningful.”