Mat Zo – Damage Control (Album Review)

Posted by on November 11, 2013

mat zo damage control

We have seen some incredible albums this year in dance music. From Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” to Andrew Bayer’s “If It Were You, We’d Never Leave” to Disclosure, Pretty Lights, BT, Feed Me, Avicii, Kaskade, Gesaffelstein and Sub Focus’s albums, this year has seen the resurgence of the full length LP. You can now add Mat Zo’s “Damage Control” to that list of stunning albums.

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This is an album. These are songs, not generic drivel that is all about the drop. The album is a culmination of the past several years of Mat Zo’s life and all the influences he brings to his music. If you follow Mat Zo on twitter, you will know about his love affair with India, so to hear the strong influences in this album, notably Superman Lost, the first track made, shouldn’t be surprising. We know about tracks like “Easy”, “Pyramid Scheme”, “The Sky” and “Lucid Dreams” because they have each been released as singles, but the whole body of work in no way sounds disjointed or like a compilation, as some albums tend to do. This is a complete, start to finish album that meshes from one song to the next, most notably the interludes in between tracks.

Some have wondered why he has such short, interlude-like songs scattered throughout the album. He explained that the use of these types of tracks stems from his love for old school hip hop and wanted that influence to be conveyed here. They help bridge together the various styles and sounds that he crafts, using his strong background in drum n bass with “Caller ID”. Mat Zo provides such diversity and balance throughout the album, moving between trancey elements, drum n bass, a more progressive sound and even a little funk as he pushes the boundaries of his sound and shows that you can’t expect one style from the English producer.

We all knew that Mat Zo had brilliance in his productions, but this debut effort puts him in a whole different stratosphere. I have had the pleasure of living with this album for the past month and had the chance to truly digest this. Not one track sounds like the next one, even “EZ” an earlier version, sounds distint from “Easy”, and each song sounds very different from his previous works. This may be a debut album for Mat Zo, but with the sheer brilliance at play here, one would think this was the work of a seasoned veteran with several albums under his belt. He is currently on tour across America with Norin & Rad, Matt Lange, Nom De Strip & Treasure Fingers to support the album. You can check the dates and get ticket information on his website here.

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