Let’s talk about effort. Not flashy, billion-dollar, CGI-on-every-frame effort. Not the effort where a guy buys twenty guitars and shoves them through a pedalboard the size of an aircraft carrier. I’m talking about real effort: the kind that happens in basements, back bedrooms, and stubborn hearts. The kind of effort where someone quietly decides, “I am going to make something good, whether or not anyone is watching.” That’s Preternatural Dreams, the newest full-length from the Matthew Shadley Band, and it’s the kind of record that makes you suspicious of how many big-budget albums sound worse.
Matthew Shadley Brauer, Outer Banks of North Carolina’s own multi-instrumentalist renaissance man, has been lurking in the musical margins for years, and you can hear it in the best way. This isn’t his first rodeo, and the music knows it. Brauer doesn’t just perform songs; he curates sonic environments with the deliberate patience of a man who’s tried everything twice and only kept what actually worked.
And sure, the album is “homespun” in production, but that term needs rebranding—because this thing sounds gorgeous. It’s like he built a cathedral out of reclaimed wood and worn-down microphones. You won’t find over-compressed digital sludge or desperate auto-tuned bombast here. What you will find is depth. Dimension. Choices. Every reverb has a purpose. Every layer breathes. There’s a warmth to it, like the musical equivalent of wearing a well-worn leather jacket that somehow smells like vinyl and good decisions.
Throughout the album, Brauer plays everything, and at no point do you think, “Wow, someone really wanted to show off.” You think, “Wow, someone really knew what they were doing.” It’s cohesive, but never sterile. It feels lived in. Every track is a space with windows, lighting, furniture, with each one feeling like it could be your favorite depending on the weather and your mood.
The album opens with My Sunday Song; all shimmering guitars and a mellow pulse, like the opening credits to a better version of your life. It’s contemplative without dragging. Think early Wilco, but less sad cowboy, more thoughtful guy outside a library.
“Catching On” follows, jangly and tightly arranged, toe-tapping without ever tipping into cloying. It strikes that rare balance between accessible and actually good; catchy, but with intention.
The title track, “Preternatural Dreams,” is where things get deliciously hazy. It’s all atmosphere and memory, like Brauer opened a soft-focus portal to a dream and just floated through it. Not background music; more like mindspace music. And it rewards repeat listens like a vending machine that forgot how to stop giving.
Thematically, Preternatural Dreams is steeped in memory, disillusionment, and a kind of hopeful melancholy. It’s the kind that only shows up after life’s early optimism has been properly sanded down by actual experience. It’s not naive, but it’s not cynical either. It occupies that rare emotional liminal space between resignation and renewal, where you’ve accepted that some things won’t turn out the way you wanted, but you’re still going to show up tomorrow and try again, because what else is there?
It’s an album about being older. Not old, just seasoned. It’s about looking back, not with regret exactly, but with that strange mix of warmth and ache that only comes when the past feels close enough to touch but far enough away to miss. It’s about realizing that disillusionment doesn’t have to mean disengagement.
There’s something quietly radical in how Preternatural Dreams handles these themes without descending into performative sadness or ironic detachment. It’s reflective, but also resilient. And in a cultural moment where sincerity often feels like a punchline or a trap, that’s not just rare. It’s borderline heroic.
Preternatural Dreams by Matthew Shadley Band is what happens when a deeply talented person stops waiting for permission, for a marketing plan, for a grant, for “the right moment” and just makes something. Not for virality. Not for TikTok sync deals. Just for the sake of the song, the sound, the feeling. There’s no branding scheme here. No algorithm-chasing hooks. Just craftsmanship and conviction and a healthy respect for the listener’s intelligence.
It doesn’t explode. It glows. It glows like a porch light at 2 a.m. after a long drive. Like the lamp beside your favorite chair. Like a memory you thought was gone, quietly returning unannounced. It’s not trying to sell you nostalgia, but it might sneakily remind you why you fell in love with music in the first place—before everything was playlists and products.
And that? In 2025? That feels almost revolutionary.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
