Following on from the bristling fury of 2020’s “Songs from a Divided Kingdom”, Me Against Misery – real name Matthew Rhys Jones – has focused on his native language in an effort to further “strip away any layers of pretence”:

“You give away a part of yourself when you release music, in any language. To write so personally in your mother tongue – it just feels more real, and more dangerous in a way."

“Welsh has always been the language of the underdog. Its very survival has depended upon a stubborn will and a readiness to protest. So it feels fitting to sing in Welsh for that reason.”

The self-produced ‘Crafangau’ – which translates to English as ‘claws’ – is a caustic, poetic excoriation of personal and societal demons, woven across a sonic landscape that unashamedly neighbours Gary Numan and Manic Street Preachers.

Says Matthew:

“The Manics are a clear and obvious inspiration to me. How could they not be? They too came from a post-Thatcherite South Wales with a desire to not simply accept the order of things, to not let the darkness overwhelm the light."

"That’s been the heart of Me Against Misery – a determination to call out the crap that modern life piles up unsolicited on the doorsteps of the poor, the weak and the lonely."

"That’s why this work has the name it does – it is my personal battle against depression and anger and voicelessness. It is, quite literally, Me Against Misery.”

Lyrically, Me Against Misery holds up a broken mirror to what Matthew believes is a fractured Wales. ‘Crafangau’ offers searing and eloquent takes on second home ownership (on ‘Mor a Mynydd)’, cult-like national devotion to Welsh Labour (on ‘Dieithryn’) and anglo-centric Murdochian media strangulation (on ‘Propaganda’).

‘Crafangau’ is typified by album track ‘Troi’ (Welsh for ‘turn’), an angular anthemic post-punk lament on the passing of time. ‘Troi’ was given its premiere in July 2022 live on BBC Radio Wales by Adam Walton, who described the track as “immersive , bristling and intriguingly nocturnal”.

Yet for all the raw analysis of the ills of modern Wales, Me Against Misery is resolute that hope is far from lost:

“The track ‘Yswgydd wrth Ysgwydd’ (English:  Shoulder to Shoulder) is my invocation of the call to resist as laid bare by Dafydd Iwan’s ‘Yma o Hyd’.

"That song has always been a majestic beacon of Welsh language music. To see it adopted as almost an anthem by (largely monolingual) football fans recently has been brilliant.  

It has shown us that, far from being a niche affair by the London media, our native culture can and does resonate with people en masse in a profound way.

Welsh music, Welsh culture, the Welsh spirit of resistance is alive and well.

I proudly submit ‘Crafangau’ as my personal testament to this incontrovertible truth.”

‘Crafangau’ by Me Against Misery is available to stream on all platforms from 29th July 2022.