Matt Williams

Matt Williams, a Charleston, South Carolina ex-patriot floating around the music scene in Austin, Texas has created an interesting self-financed debut. Cleverly borrowing influences, riffs and melodies from Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, Williams uses his voice as the premiere instrument to produce an album that borrows so much from the past that instead of sounding fresh, it hovers dangerously around being a modern pop culture musical refinishing of ’60s ideals. Frolicking loosely around a cultural narrative that examines the life and times of a hormonal, party crazed twenty-something, Williams wraps his head around party anthems, slow funk and ’70s soul that sounds like it was written 30 years ago. His high pitched voice, loose guitar work and soulful but bottom heavy drum mixing provides a steady and enjoyable theme to the album, but one keeps wondering that if Williams had been around during Muscle Shoals’ heyday, one could only imagine how popular this record could have been. Delightfully positive yet at times clichéd, Let’s Work It Out enhances the desire to delve further into the oldies collection and dust off LPs of Marvin Gaye and Blonde on Blonde. A decent effort Mr. Williams, but poor timing.