Review: Theme From Alex - Thirsty Broken Magic & Part Ghost Reissued (Matt Bladen)

Theme From Alex - Thirsty Broken Magic & Part Ghost (Self Released)
Matthew Alexander Powell continues his reissue campaign with the two albums from his previous band Theme From Alex. Thirsty Broken Magic dropped in 2003 and and Part Ghost in 2016, both are similar but different in their own ways.

Thirsty Broken Magic is more of a solo album with Matt performing vocals/guitars/bass joined by Rob Reed (Magenta/Sanctuary/Chimpan A) on keys/programming and Ryan Ashton on drums.

Part Ghost is more of band project with Matt on vocals/guitar, Blare on drums and lead vocals on Comfort The Ride, Edd Sprague on guitars/vocals and Jamie Roberts on bass/vocals, who is now in Puzzle Tree with Powell.

Production wise Thirsty Broken Magic is handheld by Powell and Reed while Part Ghost is Powell and Lee Howells who also adds backing vocals alongside Beth-Anne Matthews and Dylan Thompson (ex-The Reasoning) whom Powell was in Shadow Of The Sun with.

Guests on Thirsty Broken Music are High Griffiths on lead guitar for Silver Lining and Edward Sprague on lead guitar for Refrain (who clearly made an impact as he joined the band for the next album).

So with all that preamble and who's who out of the way we can actually get down to the music on these albums. Starting with Thirsty Broken Magic and Soul Tired kicks off with some early 2000's alt rock riffs that were bang up to date then, Powell's vocals perhaps not as refined as they are now but there's a passion behind it for mixing grooving riffs with prog acumen.

She comes next and you can hear the Jeff Buckley influence strongly in the voice and acoustic guitar, the acoustics are very important to the whole album, creating the main rhythm of these songs as Light And Shade adds Creed/Staind style emotive balladry and the first of three Mantra's splits the album up into chapters, the first two short interludes while the third is the outro of the record but features a hidden song (remember those) after some silence

Before I Know brings back the heavy, a slithering bass groove adding grunge to the alt metal as Breathe dreamily invokes some radio pop shifting to a short rockers Fra Diavalo. You can hear that Thirsty Broken Magic is very of it's time but a lot of the styles visited here continue into Powell's work after this and beyond.

I mentioned the vocals and they aren't bad mind you, just still a bit raw which suits the style of the album as the woozy Silver Lining is followed by the soulful Sunburn, again highlighting the acoustic guitar. Carrying this through to Refrain which makes me think of Stone Temple Pilots and is the last 'proper' song here.

Thirsty Broken Magic is an album of potential, there's a lot of things here that will be revisited over Powell's career and on the follow up of course.

Part Ghost then is a record with a bit more time and experience behind it, the prog influences creeping in a bit more in terms of experimentation with styles, rhythms, and atmospheres. Big riffs swagger in on Broken Man the alt/grunge style still central to the music but as I said much more rounded.

Lyrically too things take a step up as they do vocally, the harmonies in particular work really well to make the album feel 'big'. Brittlewing is spectral and dynamic, it sounds like a band playing these songs over a collection of musicians, we move into the riffy metallic world of Canute and it's powerful Alice In Chains vibe.

Galaxy returns to acoustic balladry, ripe with emotion and some 90's angst meeting a bit of prog rock scrubbing, Mad Season continuing the psychedelic/acoustic themes with repeating melodies, transitioning to Comfort The Ride, the albums longest song and it's most affecting, hooked on a big bass line it's got a flavour of Dream Theater's balladry.

Into the back end of the record and the maturity is obvious with the brooding Play Dead and the propulsive Crashing Around You, the drumming here needs to be highlighted as it does on the on the Soundgarden-like Holy Water, a track which brings the woozy riffs of Cornell and co.

The influences are a lot broader on Part Ghost, more realised than on the debut. Bloodlines for instance is some introspective radio fodder segueing into album closer Torch which again features a big set of chorus riffs countered by stripped back verses.

So Part Ghost feels much more like a band project, the style of Thirsty Broken Magic doesn't disappear it's just reappraised with experience and performed by more musicians which adds to the definition of everything.

Revisiting these albums in preparation for his new solo album Matthew Alexander Powell is giving the audience gained through Puzzle Tree a look at how he got here. Theme From Alex is where volume met the singer/songwriter and both are worth exploring to chart the evolution. 9/10