Quiet loner is both a band and an individual singer/ songwriter, one Matt Hill. Matt's based in Manchester, he's an Elvis Presley and Bill Hicks obsessive who named his band after a band Hicks once fronted. Just like your reviewer, he also discovered country from backtracking through the likes of Uncle Tupelo, Buffalo Tom and The Lemonheads back to Gram Parsons and Johnny Cash to way beyond.
After winding up in a remote New Mexico town with the unlikely name Truth Or Consequence while travelling in 1996, this secret passion for Country flowered and seemed a viable musical way forward even when returning to rain-lashed, industrial Manchester. So since then that's what's been consuming Matt as he's honed his rootsy singer/ songwriting credentials the hard way playing toilets and releasing self-produced EPS at his gigs. Things looked good with quiet loner having an album ready to go in 2002 when Matt contracted a rare virus, got hospitalised for a protracted spell and the album was temporarily shelved.
Since then, he's regrouped quiet loner - also featuring Mike Harries (drums, organ), Dave Harries (bass, banjo) and Alan Cook (pedal steel and veteran of many sessions involving the likes of Chris Mills, Michael Weston King and Tom Ovans) - and partially re-recorded what I now hold in my hand, the finally-released "Secret Ruler Of The World."
So it's been a long, hard road for Matt thus far, but the experiences and knock-backs have been beneficial, at least creatively, as "Secret Ruler Of The World" is one of the very best homegrown UK roots-rock albums your reviewer has ever clapped ears on.
But first a word of warning: if you have a problem with extremely emotional albums where the author spills his heart out right in front of you than you'll find "Secret Ruler..." hard to take. Make no mistake, this is a break up album of the first water, drenched in bitterness, spite, regret, sadness, reflection and the range of emotion in between. It's not an overstatement to say it's up there with Ryan Adams' "Heartbreaker", but the album it most recalls ( for me personally) is The Good Sons' final album "Happiness" (itself Michael Weston King's break-up album) and on the strength of this, Matt Hill is worthy of mention in the same league as MWK and the equally under-rated Chris Mills.
There's not a weak track here. The wistful "Henri" kicks off the affair and is a stately, mid-paced cruise enlivened by Alan Cook's burnished gold pedal steel. It's a good start, though it's soon eclipsed by "Real Romantic Soul", which drops in somewhere between Johnny Cash and 16 Horsepower, with lovely banjo plucking from bassist Dave Harries and the melody line cocking a snook to The Handsome Family's "My Sister's Tiny Hands."
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"Dusk Settles" follows, and it's the first of the album's clutch of magical ballads. Framed by fragile pedal steel and whirling organ, its' exquisite sadness (sample lyric: "Wish I was lying at your feet, I wouldn't have to lie to your face") is wholly tangible, as it is on the forlornly pretty "Postcards To Broken Hearts" which finds Matt's poetic approach cracking and him resorting to "it's too bloody big this double bed" as the kiss off line. Stunning stuff, as is the folksy "God Knows I'm Leaving", which is deceptively gentle thanks to Kirsty mcgee's flute, but features lyrical invective ("steam clouds are rising from fountains of piss") that Chris Mills would relish.
Perhaps understandably - bearing in mind the subject matter - the album only features a couple of tunes that approach 'rocker' status, and of these "A Fraction Of Your Smile" is still reflective and abetted by expressive dobro. "You Can't Believe I'm So Bitter" is the biggest rave-up here, and Hill's rage therein could be cut with a knife, as he proceeds to do his best Elvis Costello and lets loose on lines like "I'd make you eat every word you promised, I'd even sit and watch you choke."
All of these are worth the price of admission, but if your reviewer's back was to the wall, he'd have to pick out both "Steal Away" and "Truth Or Consequence" as his favourites here. The first is truly devastating: voyeuristically accurate adulterer's blues, built around Lennonesque piano and a savage grace, with Hill holding nothing back. The lines: "It's all easy words and hearts and flowers in stolen bedroom towels and I don't have to be there when your bills get paid" give you an idea of the scalpel-sharp observations here. It's magnificent, but you'll need to keep the tissues handy, as you will for "Truth Or Consequence" where Matt bares his very soulover four haunting, haunted and perfectly weighted minutes.
"Secret Ruler Of The World" is an album where the scars run deep and will take an eternity to heal. It's tender, tough and almost unbearably experience-fuelled and you will quite probably obsess over it for longer than is maybe healthy, but that's the kind of response Matt Hill demands. Believe me, you need to hear this album.
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