Al Matcott’s debut album, Summer’s Coming, was a full-throated howl against global warming and the forces behind it. Featuring caterwauling guitars, driving rhythms, and incisive lyricism, it earned him a Double J feature album.

His soon-to-be-announced follow-up album, to be released on Cheersquad Records & Tapes, features a lush and expansive sonic palette. Folk and country meet garage and psychedelic rock as Matcott turns his earworm melodies and memorable one-liners to the hyperreal wasteland of our digital lives.

Produced by Rob Muiños and recorded upstairs at The Gem Bar in Collingwood VIC, the first single ‘Wouldn’t Expect To See You Here’ tumbles forth like a lost outtake from The Stooges’ Funhouse before morphing into a sound that seamlessly blends into a sound akin to both The Replacements and The Strokes. The surprises don’t end there! It’s a song of two halves, with the fuzz-drenched riffs and shout-along choruses giving way to mournful and melancholy pedal steel and piano.

As Matcott explains, “‘Wouldn’t Expect To See You Here’ is a pub rock song with a pub rock tale, telling the story of someone wasted at the bar, getting stuck into his friends for drama entirely of his own making. Then it gets a bit deeper, about why friendship is so important.”

A lyric video accompanies this portrayal of petty drama and meditation on the power of friendship, naturally told through ‘00s reality television.

“Sometimes this world is a perpetual bummer
And it can take so much to just even try
So maybe quit looking for buses to throw your friends under
When they’re all that you’ve got to get by”

The single and the forthcoming album features members of Matcott’s Forever Band:

Miranda Holt (Drums, also plays in Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice), Brendan West (Guitar, also plays in Queenie), Phoebe Neilson (Bass, also plays in Killing Heidi) – as well as contributions from Elizabeth M. Drummond (Vocals), James Bowers (Piano & Organ) and James Gilligan (Pedal Steel Guitar).

Al Matcott is launching the ‘Wouldn’t Expect To See You Here’ single at the Punters Club on Thursday July 3 with special guests Adored. Head to almatcott.com for tickets and info.