To Whom It May Concern...

This morning I woke up in a less-than-average kinda mood. One look at the window did little to improve things, the weather was honestly miserable. I had two options... Sit inside all day and dwell on my bad mood, or make the most of it and get out. I chose the latter. I chucked on my coat and put my headphones in and got in the car to head for the woods. I'm not sure why the woods in particular jumped out today as the place that I wanted to be, it just felt like that's where I should go. For years I've struggled with mental health, mostly bad anxiety that gets the better of me quite a lot of the time and on days like this I'd often stay inside and my mood would only continue to decline. One of the things that has always helped is walking. I walk and I explore. I like to discover new places and sometimes, like today, I just like to walk around places I've been before and observe. The anxiety can make that hard at times, because some days I wake up a...

Today marks the release of Enter Shikari's 5th album, The Spark . I waited up until midnight for it to hit Spotify (signed vinyl en route) and by 9am I had both slept and listened to the album 5 times! It's infectiously brilliant, upbeat and anthemic but lyrically it feels like such a personal, soul-baring album.  It makes you feel good straight from the off, with a peppy synth track and Rou's wonderful voice asking "Are you staying awake for the lift off tonight?" as we kick off with The Sights. A beautiful opening track that really sets the bar high for the remainder of the album! From early on you can tell that this will be like no other Enter Shikari album that has come before it and I love that with all of my heart. My favourite thing about Enter Shikari is the fact that I've been listening to them for almost 11 years and they've never once failed to surprise me! They never feel to keep it fresh, every time they release a new track or a new album, you...

It's a question we've all thought about at times. Why is mental health so scary? Why, in 2017, are so many people still so afraid to talk? Why is it acceptable for us to suffer in silence?  There's a stigma that surrounds mental health, one which halts progress and further pushes those who suffer down into the depths. People treat mental health like it's not an illness. They use words like "Why don't you just cheer up?" or "Just be happy!" and that level of ignorance is dangerous. You wouldn't tell a cancer victim to "Get over it" or say "Hey, just don't have cancer!" so why should mental health be any different?  Mental illnesses are a very, very real thing and those that suffer need help. I know this all too well, but it's scary to tell someone how you feel. It's scary to admit that you just don't want to wake up in the morning. It's scary to cry yourself to sleep at night, feeling like you're wor...

The Witcher 3 is a game I've played before. I bought it on launch for PS4, and I absolutely loved it. It's so well written, it's visually beautiful, it's mature in its storylines and its progression. It's frustratingly hard but most importantly, it's gripping.  I am a massive fan of the single player RPG platform, my favourite games include Skyrim, Fallout and the Mass Effect franchise. For me when I pick up a game, I want to totally immerse myself in it's storylines and feel as though I am actually there. The Witcher 3 is a game that does this fantastically. It's so atmospherical and everywhere you go has places to explore, things to do. It's easy to get lost in it's frankly rather massive world space.  There are 3 main areas, each rather large, and one smaller area in the base game alone that you can spend countless hours exploring and still discover new things. Even it's side quests provide good little distractions from the very st...

I'm not quite sure what it is that I wish to achieve yet, but I know in the past I managed to successfully use blogger as a way to express things I wanted to talk about and it was a good distraction. So I guess I'll start with a brief little intro. I'm Matt, I'm 24. I suffer with depression. I like to write, I like to read, I like to play guitar and I spend a lot of my time alone listening to music or gaming. Right now, I'm okay with that.  I will try to keep this as something positive. I'm thinking of making it into some kind of rambling review page about things I've played, listened to or read. Things that are important to me.  It's largely irrelevant because nobody will read it!  Love, always. x