Matador are keenly concerned with the balance of all things on Above, Below, and So, an album as rich and catchy as it is brimming with altruistic allure.
Release date: February 27, 2026 | Church Road Records | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
Like Matador, I’ve been thinking a lot about life, death, and birth, particularly rebirth. I ferally crave the death of our current world as it is, so that a new life can birth forward, one with good in mind, for us and the earth. Cynics, critics, and the less imaginative always call this idealistic in a naive, unattainable way. Well, that may be true, and yet no matter how bad things get there’s always a kernel of hope within me that the best has yet to happen, if not in my lifetime than the next or the next after that.
‘Where have they gone, those days since you were born?
We talk of months now, and you grow like weeds
Bearing the sweetest flower and harshest thorn
Constant in war between your wants and needs‘
Above, Below, and So is an album about this to me. A bit of a play on the esoteric, widely adopted phrase ‘as above, so below’, it’s concerned with the cyclical nature of unity, its songs harboring death and the end of things, but also the springing of new life and continuance of it all. Everything has its opposite and they all exist concurrently. I usually see this enacted artistically when I see the Baphomet with one hand pointing upward (above) and one downward (below). It’s a notion I don’t put a lot of philosophical or spiritual stock in personally, but appreciate it nonetheless. Matador must feel similarly because their music adopts this sort of dichotomic yin-yang as well.
With doom metal laced with catchy stoner-like affectations in one hand, perhaps pointing down, and post-metal progression and soundscapes in the other, perhaps pointing up, the sonic foundation itself serves the album’s theme. And yet each song strikes a strict balance, not veering too hard into the heaviness to break its hull against the jagged ground or letting the song float away too far in the atmosphere only to freeze and fall. This doesn’t mean songs sound the same though – they’re quite unique and different, each easily distinguishable by the second listen. It’s impressive really, and also a testament to how well it all flows together.
‘Is it the dark of winter that you fear?
Or are you with some inner terror cursed?
Stronger than any comfort waiting here
In arms that held you from the very first?‘
“The House Always Wins” is adventurous, making big instrumental splashes and squeezing the most out of melody for a welcoming intro and lead single. The opening vocals are haunting – ‘You’ve got control of the wheel now/And I hope to hell you feel better, somehow‘ – and at almost eight minutes, the track paradoxically exercises restraint to keep things tight and on the rails, but yet I can feel an organic playfulness here that’s nowhere else on Above, Below, and So.
“The Virus” can be treated as a pivot point to the opposite feeling – more pensive and careful playing that gives way to more maligned and caustic vocals and lyrics. It also has a mournful feel in the middle, fitting given some of those lyrics: ‘Faded empire, blessed with reason/Yet this is what you choose/Wake up liar, You’re given the choice/And yet you’re picking the noose‘. They’re the only lyrics cleanly sung here as well, bereft of anger and full of desire to be heard clearly like a prophecy. It’s judgmental, coming from a place of justice rather than spite or with the goal to patronize.
‘Wait for a while and watch the seasons turn
Beyond your window spring will come again
Blossom will fill your garden as you learn
That sunshine conquers tears as well as rain‘
The blockquotes I’ve been inserting this whole time are from the track “The Flood”, what I consider the thematic center and atmospheric apex of the album. It’s a poem written by Jayne Kirk and performed by Karen Wallace that signifies growth and purging of the weapons and defense mechanisms we feel the need to forge for ourselves in order to survive, and with a world and surroundings built on love, they can be safely shed and discarded without concern. It’s all delivered on the back of instrumentation that reminded me warmly of older Elder music, but harmoniously beautiful in its own way, a transcendental soundtrack for a poignant moment. It is technically the best Above, Below, and So has to offer, but I also love so much more about it – the riffing of “The House Always Wins”, the ominous attitude of “Glitter Skin”, how “Hooks” bends explosive alt-metal energy back into itself for a proper climax to the story.
Matador have made one of the more daring and interesting albums in a long while, coiling up fine musicianship and songwriting around themes that really speak to the times and empathetic souls. You need to look no further than its cover by Spike Johnson, a world of natural wonder mirrored in an asymmetric way. Above, a bed of green grass, blades broken from being touched by humans and the wind, a crisp and soft respite from the leering coldness we all feel in modern times; below, an extravagant, rippling river with two swans serenely floating on its surface. Between both sides, a sun-soaked sky flanked by clouds bisects them as if it’s a portal from one end to the other. Everything is vast and seemingly endless, but also good and knowable in its simplicity, no worries about what may happen and the only death to speak of is the death of the old ways that shackled us. If for only a moment, Matador provide the keys of liberation and the path to a better life.
‘And love, we know, will always have
The power to banish thorn
And leave behind the flower‘
