Matthew Lee and the Standbys step into the spotlight with Black Book, a debut album, like the carefully collected pages of a life examined, lived through, and rewritten. Out now on all streaming platforms, the ten-track record gathers songs Matthew Lee Patterson penned across the last decade, threading them into a single emotional arc recorded in New York City with producer Zack Eldridge. It has turned out to be a retro-indie, queer-hearted tapestry that gives you grit, vulnerability, and a clear-eyed sense of growth.
Patterson pulls from the melodic urgency of The Wonder Years, the bookish introspection of The Weakerthans, and the textured drag of 2000s emo, but the tender, weathered voice guiding Black Book is wholly his own, carrying a courage earned the hard way. Much of the album wrestles with how we attach ourselves, sometimes fiercely, sometimes foolishly, and how we learn to loosen our grip without losing our sense of self. And tucked inside the lyrics is a queerness that never strains for attention but instead breathes naturally through the stories, from Pattersonโs own open marriage to the lives of friends who orbit these songs.
โFalling Apart,โ the opener, starts in a haze, with ambient revving melodies drawing low like vapor while cymbals splash softly around the edges. Patterson enters emotionally like his heart is at his throat. As the drums lock into a steady tap and the guitars harden into gritty riffs, his voice rises in heartbreaking desperation. When he hits the line, โI am falling apart, yeah, I am grasping at straws, trying to claw my way back home,โ the whole track tightens around that ache, setting the emotional stakes for everything to come.
Midway through, โAgainโ leans into fuzzier indie-rock terrain, built on a catchy, slightly grimy guitar motif. Patterson sings in a narrative cadence, recounting the unsettling strangeness of dreaming about an ex he has long since moved past. The story unspools slowly, with haunting, accidental longing bleeding back through the cracks, the way memory often refuses to obey closure.
The album closes on โMy, Oh My,โ released earlier as the final single, and itโs here the full emotional loop snaps into place. A bright, upbeat rhythm carries Pattersonโs warm, melodic delivery as he sings with soft affection, until he suddenly vaults into his upper register, unleashing a burst of passion like a decadeโs worth of revelations tumbling out at once. Then he pulls back, almost shyly, before building again, signifying the weathered devotion at the heart of the song.
Black Book is the sound of someone making peace with his own history. Itโs full of hope because it comes from doing the work.
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Review by: Naomi Joan