Material Witness is William Matheny’s third full-length album since 2017, but if it feels more like the confident work of an artist who has been making music for much longer, there’s good reason for that. The Morgantown, West Virginia multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter paid his dues early, playing in bands with friends and family for two decades, until he was prepared to make his own mark. 

“I felt like I had found my voice for real,” Matheny says of the moment around a decade ago when he realized his songwriting was ready. “I’d been writing my whole life but my approach was very ‘I play in a band and I guess we need songs.’ Sort of like a guy who opens a restaurant and figures he might as well make up some dishes to put on the menu. It took me a while to hone in on my own perspective and figure out exactly what I had to say.”

From 2017’s Strange Constellations to 2023’s That Grand, Old Feeling, plus a scattering of EPs and singles, Matheny has earned his place as one of the Mountain State’s most vivid and dynamic musical voices. Material Witness, recorded in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer/engineer Justin Francis, raises the stakes with ten original songs that often find Matheny contemplating mortality and the passage of time. 

Musically, it’s a step forward for Matheny, although not a big departure from his previous work. “It feels like the next room down the hallway,” he says. “When I listen to it in context, I definitely see a logical progression.”  It’s also the most musically diverse album he’s made to date. “It has the most raucous moments with some of the most delicate moments too,” he says. “I think the emotional range of it is a bit wider than my previous records. It feels less hemmed-in by the idea of fitting into anything.”

Indeed. Material Witness kicks off with the anthemic guitar rocker “Babylon Man” and its memorable chorus chant which inverts Hedy West’s folk revival staple “500 Miles.” “Lord, I’m one/Lord, I’m two/Lord, I’m nothing without you.” Matheny shifts gears for track two, “Where Do The People In My Dreams Go,” a meditative, midtempo melodic gem with a gentle electric piano riff setting the tone and a string quartet sweetening the arrangement. (Matheny says the music of enigmatic 20th century songwriter Connie Converse influenced this one.) Track three, “Everyone Leaves Everyone,” has more of an indie-roots feel, with trace elements of Guided By Voices in its opening guitar figure. And track five, “Fairmont Hair” - packed with insider references to his hometown of Mannington, WV - is druggy, sleep deprived blues rock that echoes mid-60s Dylan or perhaps the Beatles “Come Together.” 

Tying everything together is Matheny’s voice, a conversational tenor that conveys both hard-won wisdom and heartfelt emotionalism with equal weight and resonance. Travelling out of state to record was a first for Matheny and his band - guitarists Bud Carroll and Adam L. Meisterhans, bassist Tucker Riggleman, keyboardist Jeremy John Batten, and drummer Clint Sutton -  and he says it helped push them to another level. Strange Constellations and That Grand, Old Feeling “were more homespun affairs,” he explains jokingly. “This was our first experiment with isolation rooms and a recording facility that has a mini-fridge.” 

It’s a long way from Matheny’s earliest recordings, which he released under the name Billy Matheny in the mid 2000s after teen years spent playing guitar in a cover band with his father and drums in Brian Porterfield’s band Cheap Truckers’ Speed. In 2008, Matheny joined established Ohio alt. folk group Southeast Engine as a multi-instrumentalist, contributing to a couple of the band’s releases on renowned indie label Misra Records, which also released Strange Constellations in 2017. 

He jumped to Kentucky sensation Tyler Childers’ label Hickman Holler for That Grand, Old Feeling. Matheny has launched his own label, Diamond Teeth, to release Material Witness on July 10th with help from distributor Thirty Tigers’ Americana-leaning affiliate Soundly. 

When Matheny tours behind the new record, he’ll work his own shows into a busy schedule that also includes stints playing bass for fellow West Virginia songwriter John R. Miller and keyboards with the Washington, DC indie act The Paranoid Style. Though he’s increasingly focused on creating his own music these days, Matheny says he’s grateful for the chance to continue supporting other artists with his instrumental versatility. 

“There are things you can’t learn by being in charge all the time,” says Matheny, echoing the chorus of the new album’s opener “Babylon Man.” “I love playing those songs and all of the people in those bands are such a joy to work with. It was never an ego thing where it had to be my vision for me to be interested. If it’s people I love and material I love, I’m down.”