MATT STELL

                                                                      FT. CHASE MATTHEW

                                                                "One Of Us" 

                                                                RECORDS Nashville

With a resume that already includes smash hits “Prayed For You,” “That Ain’t Me No More,” and “Everywhere But On,” Matt Stell is certainly no stranger to country music fans.

His accolades continued stacking up earlier this year with the release of his One Of US EP,  which not only delivered his latest hit, “Man Made,” but also earned tremendous buzz for its title track.

But feeling the want for something a bit more out of the breakout fan favorite, Stell has now enlisted hot rising superstar Chase Matthew to join him on a reimagined version of the song, who aptly offers his distinctively unique, country boy touch to the small-town anthem.

This song, written by Gavin Slate, James Barker, Jim McCormick, and Travis Wood, sees its redone version leaning into an ultra-fresh, modern production that taps into pop backbeats while expertly never losing the original flavor of the guitar driven melody, allowing both Stell and Matthew to inject the raw honesty of their voices into perfect pictures of down-home folk.

Running down a listing in each of the verses to describe the types of people who are small-town famous, they touch on all their different impacts as they sing of the high school sports hero with his jersey number retired on the wall, the 10^th grade dropout who is now about to be a first time dad, the one who tried to leave town only to come right back, the now married couple who has been together since fifth grade, and the one who they now raise a drink to in memory that got called home after wrecking his Chevy.

Playing off those descriptives of recognizable people we all know, the chorus expertly flips the script to point the mirror at you as they push into a lyric that speaks directly to the listener’s heart and gets it beating a little faster when they turn this song from being about their own background, to call you to come into yours as they embrace you as “one of us.”

“We all talk a little small town, buncha raised-right-'round-here kids

Keeping it country

We all know a little dirt road, 80-hour workload week

Never hurt nobody

One of us got a chain if you get stuck

One of us got a cooler full of cold Busch

In the back of his truck

And if that sounds like you

You might be one of us

Yeah, you might be one of us”

Whenever an artist reimagines a song that hits like this one has, there must be elements that separate the new version from the old to make it pop again. The addition of Chase Matthew is a key to adding a new layer, just as much as the new production elements which breathe new life into the backbeat. Having accomplished that noticeable separation, Matt Stell perfectly elevates this fan favorite and should experience matching, if not stronger success with it.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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