Matt Belmont


I’m not one to pass judgement on a cafe’s choice of playlist, however when sitting at Pret A Manager in Leeds, it seemed pretty pointless for music to even be played inside when Matt Belmont was busking. It’s not very often you discover talent in a city centre especially when hearing countless renditions of ‘fields of gold’ from various buskers. However when hearing someone stylize Ray Lamontagne’s classic song ‘Trouble’ I knew without a doubt Leeds had something remarkable to offer.
Regardless of singing many covers from different types of artist, Matt Belmont has a wonderful gift to completely project each song as his own. His voice portrays a kind yet husky powerful tone and as bizarre as this sound I can’t help but think there are hints of reggae too. It’s hard to use a comparison in order to describe his music as each acoustic cover he does, whether it is a mainstream song or not; sounds entirely refreshing. Perhaps it’s the way he tails of each line of the song in an unexpected tone or casually breaks up the flow of the beat within the lyrics. 

After Birdy’s cover of ‘Skinny Love’ making my ears almost cry it made me incredibly pleased to hear Matt Belmont’s latest version. Don’t get me wrong, Birdy for her age has done well – but being a big fan of Bon Iver’s work, I couldn’t help but feel her song was directed to bewildered teenagers trying to find their latest fashion image. However I felt Matt Belmont gave the song complete justice, sticking to the acoustic guitar and leaving the dramatic piano arrangement out – making me want to listen to it every day.

Not only does he seem to be the king of covers, but after listening to his own song ‘Divinity’ on Spotify he seems to be a lyrical genius too. A beautiful descriptive song with empowering words such as ‘his mind untarnished, dreams are pure...he’s a thinker’ leads me to believe higher of him as an artist then I already do. The only thoughts left of him are to why he is still unsigned?
So if you every seem to be in Leeds fancying a bloomer sandwich from Pret a Manager, I only sincerely hope that you are lucky enough to be there on the day Matt Belmont is busking. Just walking on the footpath to fame, he is constantly gigging locally in Leeds – having only just seen him recently performing in Smokestack, so please check out his facebook for future gigs. In fact he will be playing Live @ Leeds among other great artists such as Aloe Blac and Sam Airey on the 29th Apr – 1st May, so don’t miss out.





 

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