THE 7th album FROM AQUALUNG, Dead Letters, is a homecoming record that thumbs its nose up to streaming conventions. it works beautifully.

Streaming has been doing some strange things to music, you may have noticed. None of this has been lost on Matt Hales. After all, not only does he make and release music as Aqualung, but he also writes and produces music for some very successful streaming artists, so he knows the score you might say. Yet on Aqualung’s latest album Dead Letters, he’s not bothered one bit about conforming to streaming conventions.

Let’s have a look at a few examples. 

Songs have been getting shorter and shorter. Now 3 minutes and 17 seconds long, the average pop song lost a whole minute between 2020 and 1990. It’s all because streaming allows people to skip songs that don’t get ‘to the point’ soon enough. 

So (as this new Aqualung album literally begins), ‘Here & Now’, track one of Dead Letters clocks in at a defiant 7 minutes. And this version was chosen as it had a much shorter ‘Gilmour style’ guitar solo than some of the other 104 versions Matt Hales recorded (none of which he has released on streaming platforms, but that’s another story). 

Now to another example. 

Audiomack data analytics guru Chris Dalla Riva, who has been listening to every single number-one track from Billboard’s Hot 100 (all 1,143 of them) has published an in-depth analysis of one of the trends that came out of his study: the death of the key change:

“23 percent of number one hits between 1958 and 1990 were in multiple keys,” he noted. “What’s odd is that after 1990, key changes are employed much less frequently, if at all, in number one hits.”

Well, isn't that interesting? I love articles like this, and I will be forwarding this one to Matt Hales so he can have a gentle laugh or a shrug of the shoulders. 

Not only does ‘Hear & Now’ have a key change, but so does track two of Dead Letters, ‘Champion of the World’. These are not the proverbial “trucker’s gear change” so loved by some of those old Billboard number ones, but rather the elegant, effortless and yes, uplifting key changes only an accomplished musician can pull off. 

Still, it’s unlikely Aqualung’s gentle ballads will trouble the top of the Billboard charts (hey, Matt did get close enough, in 2003 ‘Brighter Than Sunshine’ reached 32 on the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart in the U.S.).

Which brings us to our third and final example (for the time being). 

At Aqualung’s recent ‘one night only UK tour’ (his first performance in the UK for 12 years at Bush Hall, London) Matt Hales let his devoted audience know just how clued up he is on streaming trends:

“One of the great things about streaming is that the system tells you what the best songs are that you’ve ever written. It ranks them, so you can also see all the songs you’ve written that aren’t very good as well. Accordingly this next song is…absolutely worthless!”. 

That was Matt’s rather tongue-in-cheek cue to launch into Champion of the World, alas, not a streaming hit. But most definitely not worthless either, the song is as close to a hit single as he’ll write these days (and a surefire hit in a parallel universe of good taste). It even has a Doobie Brother’s bounce!

It’s funny, but some musicians who have long careers are often apologetic about their most recent work. While this might have a touch more humility than the usual brazen fib “this is my best work ever”, they needn’t be. I wonder, has streaming got something to do with this? When an artist’s new work is so transparently ranked against their biggest hits, it must send a disconcerting message.

At the Bush Hall show, as one member of the audience was finding his way back to his seat from a trip to the bar, Matt paused proceedings to wait for him, before joking “you’re gonna need that drink”. That was an introduction to another Dead Letters song: ‘Fool’, one of the album's fine, personal ballads (this one written with his brother Ben Hales). 

Some people say that the magic's gone
Once you find out how the trick is done
But I watch the same old record spin
And I never want the song to end
Just play me the same old song again

Dead Letters side one ends with the first ‘single’, the gentle and melodic ‘Imperfect Cadence’, which comes with a rather radio friendly chorus that proves beyond doubt Hale’s hit-making credentials are in fact well intact. It comes complete with a piano flourish at the end that is a nod to Hales’ classical training. The song is yet another parallel universe radio smash. 

A quirky little thing here, is that the cover of Dead Letters will tell you side one isn’t done. But it is. 

The ballad ‘November’ doesn’t close side one (there is a genuine typo on my copy) but kicks off side two. And it is a real showstopper - the centrepiece of this fine record. 

Indeed, if ‘side one’ contains the big grand opener and ‘the (parallel universe) hits’ then ‘side two’ is the introspective half, full of personal stories, life sketches and dedications to family and loved ones. Each song is beautifully worked, with some rather wonderful chamber pop arrangements. On returning to England from the USA and making a new home in the South West, Hales was reacquainted with an old piano (which even came with vomit stains from prior family use). That piano adorns the inside cover sleeve of the album and proved to be the central tool in this record’s creation, with Hales composing sketch after sketch that eventually shaped themselves into the album's nine fabulous songs. ‘Bad Dreams’, the album’s closer, is a masterpiece. It’s nearly 8 minutes long and not a second wasted. Finally, just before the needle gravitates towards the centre, Hales whispers ‘so’, just as the record started.

Deal Letters is first and foremost  a homecoming record then. On the back sleeve a child’s handwriting simply states “Once there was a boy named Matt. He loved to sing”. It could have been added that Matt plays music only according to his own rules. 

“I’m sort of thumbing my nose at the world of streaming” he told me recently on The Art of Longevity podcast. Well it’s paid off. Dead Letters is less strange, more beautiful, and the best work Matt Hales has made so far as Aqualung. 

Even if the songs might not end up at the top of Aqualung’s profile page.