Progressive RockFolk & World

Self-released · 26 June 2026

«Ascending» opens with fast fingerpicking and a run of harmonics, and for forty-one minutes there’s nothing else but an acoustic guitar. No layers, no effects, no second track. Four pieces (9:43, 10:40, 11:05 and 9:48) and that’s it.

Behind it is Matthew Nichols, a guitarist from Ohio who works in open tunings and writes as if he’d come out of metal: the material has more to do with Tool or Agalloch than with the solo-guitar tradition he draws his technique from. Arrangements and production are by Nathanaël Larochette, and the recording has a lot to do with it: you can hear nails brushing the string and frets ringing as a note fades out, details that would go nowhere on a record with drums.

Density is the problem. Nichols writes in riffs and strings so many of them together that the pieces leave no air in between; «Asleep in the Laurel» and «Narrows Hill» are the two that ease off the pressure, and it’s exactly when the record breathes best. A solo guitar can carry eleven minutes, but it has to decide when to go quiet, and here it rarely does.

Rating: 7/10

Text by Guillem Cardós