Matthew McNeal’s fifth studio LP - HIGHLONESOME - will be released everywhere on April 4, 2025 via McNeal’s own Matte Black Sound Company. Featuring some of the outfit’s most popular singles - Catch and Release and Dropped The Ball - the album puts forward-reaching production and earnest songwriter front and center, both of which have become synonymous with the artist. After over ten years of relentless touring and prolific release timelines, as well as becoming a staple in the DIY and independent music communities throughout the country, it’s easy to see why Matthew McNeal has become an indie darling in his hometown of Fort Worth and beyond.
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RELEASES FROM MATTHEW McNEAL
“All of McNeal’s releases are stylistically expansive, crisscrossing nimbly between the lean grooves of “Texas Heat,” the swirling psychedelia of “Rumorosa,” and the angular, almost post-punk guitar work of “Sweetheart” plus spots in between. The glue between them is McNeal and (longtime-collaborator and bandmate Andre) Black’s combined musical sensibilities, with an emphasis on emotive songwriting. It’s real, it’s honest, it’s always coming straight from the heart. ”
Bio
Upon the release of band’s 2015 debut studio album Compadre, both Matthew McNeal and constant collaborator Andre Black have toured the country ten times over, attracting fans by word of mouth and playing over 100 tour dates each year.
After going out into the Texas Hill Country to record 2018’s sophomore effort Good Luck at Israel Nash’s Plum Creek Sound studio, the indie-folk rocker hit his stride, pushing the band forward by looking to the past. McNeal and Black started their own record label Matte Black Sound Company, which now acts as a pillar for the independent music scene in Fort Worth, Texas and beyond. The album gained traction across the US and Europe, with songs ‘Rumorosa’ and ‘Run’ hitting radio waves across the country while McNeal constantly toured, playing shows with indie hitmakers like Durand Jones and the Indications, Charley Crockett, Rayland Baxter, and Dylan LeBlanc.
After a tumultuous year of sudden deaths, a house fire, a wedding, and identity theft, McNeal followed up with Good Grief, a long-playing soundtrack of love and loss, arriving within the first month of 2020’s quarantine. The album shone light on McNeal’s genre-bending style as well as his focus on high-fidelity, forward-reaching production. Despite a year of canceled tour dates, the band caught the attention of Rolling Stone Magazine, American Songwriter, and NPR-affiliate stations thanks to the album’s lead single ‘All For Nothing’ - a song that rang more and more true as the year progressed.
As a year of unknowns ravaged the industry, Matthew and Matte Black Sound found ways to pivot, creating with a heightened sense of intention and a shift in perspective. McNeal and Black built out their own studio and tapped collaborator, engineer/producer, and friend Ted Young (Kurt Vile, The Rolling Stones, Taking Back Sunday) to make music with more ferocity and frequency than ever. The band’s fourth album Along For The Ride arrived in December of 2021, and was quickly followed by the bands first live album Live in Hickory Hills (‘15-’19) in 2022.
McNeal returned in 2023 with Love Was - an EP written in the wake of his step-father’s passing. The release shined a light on the evolution of the band’s sound, showing a clear through-line of Matthew McNeal’s voice and songwriting all while breaking barriers of traditional genre expectations.
