Matt Pryor in Tampa

Kansas City, Missouri native, Matt Pryor, is a household name for anyone who wasattuned to the second and third waves of emo. His genre-de=ining band, The Get UpKids, were among a small and legendary group that has shaped the musicallandscape for years. However, after growing tired of the boundaries it so needlesslyapplied, the internationally recognized frontrunners eventually transcended thegenre with their later albums and found themselves at home with a more indiesound.Most recently, on his latest album under his given name, Matt Pryor has presentedthe world with The Salton Sea, and it is abundantly clear that this is the continuationof a decades-long love affair with music and being outright obsessed withsongwriting. Steadfast fans of Pryors proli=ic career will also =ind themselves treatedto a style that is more reminiscent of the works of Paul Westerberg and Red HousePainters, that is of course laden with Pryors signature style, whose DNA is deeplyrooted in artists like Elvis Costello and The Afghan Whigs.It should be noted that the chosen title for the album is not one that was pickedarbitrarily, and while not a concept album, the period of time when the songs werewritten were some of the darkest days of Pryors life. After spending six months in adownward spiral in what he sarcastically refers to as the penultimate moments ofhis drinking career, Pryor =inally hit rock bottom. A casual habit that became a full-on addiction had of=icially come to a head, and in the blurry moments when 2022became 2023, Pryor found himself with a choice that so many people before himhave been forced to reckon with:Keep going on this path and face certain tragedyor Clean up, get sober, and stayon the right side of the dirt.Thankfully, Pryor decided on the latter, and the beautiful composite left on theshoreline for all of us to enjoy is the album now known as The Salton Sea. For thoseunfamiliar, The Salton Sea is whats known as a terminal lakemeaning that newwater never =lows into it, and its salinity increases incrementally due to evaporationand pollution The once high-spirited desert oasis was a tourist attraction forcelebrities and the upper crust in the 1950s and 60s, and it is now a bona =idewasteland. Its not dif=icult to imagine that while in the throes of addiction, Pryorsaw himself as this once lush and vibrant body of water that years ago was referredto as a California desert oasisbut it is now an uninhabitable veritable shadow ofits former self.Pryors latest songs have a timeless quality that makes you instantly nostalgic forstrangers memories that unfold as narrative stories, and as a listener, youre leftwondering what these moments are all abouthow will they unfold? This isundoubtedly due to the fact that along with sobriety, Pryor has found solace inwriting for the sake of writing , a practice that he keeps up with dailyusuallybefore dawn. If theres a silver lining to all of this, one can glean that nothing bad willcome from =inding more creative outlets to calm the devil that sits on your shoulder,especially when that person has been writing the soundtrack of so many peopleslives for the last thirty years.