“The nineteenth century, iron,
Truly a cruel century!
By you into the darkness of the night, starless,
An unknown man is cast…” – this is how the turn of past centuries was once described, precisely capturing the eternal confrontation between human fragility and an oppressive era. Centuries change, but a person gazes into the horizon with the same existential trepidation. We search for points of support when the ground slips from under our feet and internal sensors register the approach of a perfect storm. On this shifting line between natural cataclysm and personal crisis, Matt DeAngelis writes his songs – an artist from South New Jersey, whose life looks like a challenge to overcoming.

Matt’s new single “Helpless To The Fire” is a subtle, cinematic ballad that refuses to fit into the Procrustean bed of a single genre. DeAngelis works smoothly in three musical coordinates, creating a rich sound. This is not the first work of the singer that we cover in our magazine, but, I admit honestly, it is this one that hooked me the most.
The first thing you notice is the piano. It is like a full-fledged voice that leads a conversation: restrained, slightly tired, but not hopeless. Such a rare breed of piano-driven indie rock, where the instrument walks alongside the vocal, like an old friend on a stroll.

DeAngelis’s vocal is crystal clear and strong enough to hold attention. The arrangement breathes. The production does not try to seem bigger than it is. For an ear tired of overloaded mainstream, this is almost a physical relief.
The special strength of “Helpless To The Fire” is in its imagery. Weather in Matt’s work becomes a full-fledged language of feelings. “Sunny days like these are hard to come by… But the wind is blowin’ harder than it ever has before” is a confession of vulnerability, and the intensifying wind is anxiety that no longer fits inside. Behind the lines is the artist’s personal experience, his struggle with anxiety and an attempt to translate chaos into meaning. An accurate diagnosis of the state: rare clearings of inner calm against the background of constant pressure from outside. Hardly any psychotherapist could package this into such a melody.

DeAngelis knows something important about fear: it does not look like a monster. In one of the lines he sings: “Fear’s the sweet old lady that won’t let you off the phone”. A sweet old lady. Polite. The one who does not hang up. The central image of fire at first seems destructive – burnout, fear, loss of control. “I’m helpless to the fire” sounds like capitulation. But closer to the finale the song makes an important turn: the fire ceases to be a sentence and becomes something you can come to terms with. “I’m not so helpless to the fire” is a return to oneself.

The visual accompaniment only enhances the effect. Shots of canyons, filmed in slanting light that makes the stone seem alive. A rock that wind and water have shaped for millions of years and that still stands – this is the visual argument of the whole song.

“Helpless To The Fire” is a mature and remarkably beautiful release. Matt DeAngelis managed to make a creative gesture: to transform personal vulnerability, fear of climate change and internal mental triggers into a universal pop-rock of hope. Society too often offers us to burn to the ground; Matt responds: we are capable of taming this flame.

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