His strongest solo album since this first! “8 out of 10. Though it was created alone, The Imagination Stage is by no means a bedroom recording; it contains all the expansive possibilities of the studio, combined with the eccentric personal vision of the home-recording artist. In one interview, Matthews mentioned that he starts his songs with chord structure, letting melodies and lyrics flow from there. You notice almost immediately how the mood shifts as the chords do, bright major chord melodies turning suddenly cooler and darker with a move to minor keys. You can tell that Matthews has struggled, artistically, commercially and personally, to reach the level of skill and achievement that The Imagination Stage represents and, even if you could not, you could still infer it from the title track’s lyrics. “I’m not going back to the time when I struggled to find a music half blind and afraid to fly”, he says of the years leading up to now. Later he vows, “I will try like hell to make a music beautiful, and it will sound like I’m alive”. More than alive, certainly. It sounds like Eric Matthews is at the very top of his unique and difficult game.”-PopMatters. Conscious craft drawn from a subconscious spark. Music conjured from "a deeper, more mysterious place," as he puts it. Dream pop in the truest sense of the phrase. "There's something new & different that's happening to me creatively," Matthews says. "Eric Matthews sounds rejuvenated on The Imagination Stage, only his fifth album in a dozen years but the third in relatively quick succession for the Empyrean label. But just when fans could start to worry that too much of Matthews' work was flooding the marketplace, he's broadened his palette, stretching the boundaries and beginning to work in more intriguing shades. But often it's the interwoven arrangements, harmonies, and interesting instrument choices that make The Imagination Stage such a wonderful record, encompassing everything from a tastefully bashing drum kit to an analog drum program to the type of subdued brass that has been a hallmark of Matthews' work since he debuted in 1995.” – AMG.
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