© Matt Smith 2026
More than 45 years into a career shaped by songwriting, performance, production and an instinct for crossing musical boundaries, Matt Smith turns his attention to the fractures of the present on …this is not ok…, a nine-song collection that moves through uncertainty, loss and social division while holding firmly to the possibility that empathy, dignity and common ground have not disappeared beyond reach..
After more than four and a half decades of making music, Matt Smith has accumulated the kind of career that could easily invite retrospection. Twenty studio albums, years of performing, producing, recording and teaching, and a musical history stretching across genres and generations would give any artist reason to look backward. Yet on …this is not ok…, the Austin-based guitarist, songwriter and producer is decidedly focused on the present—and on a world whose divisions have become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Across nine original songs, Smith considers uncertainty, loss, alienation, resilience and the erosion of common ground. The concerns are substantial, but the album does not operate as a catalogue of grievances. Instead, Smith approaches the turbulence around him with an unusual degree of restraint. Where contemporary discourse often rewards the loudest expression of certainty, …this is not ok… is guided by something quieter: an insistence that acknowledging what is fractured does not require contributing to the fracture.
“I care very deeply for the world and its people,” Smith has said. “I knew I had to express what I was feeling, but not in a way that added to the fracture.”
That distinction is central to understanding the record. Smith is not particularly interested in prescribing what listeners should believe, nor does he reduce complex social anxieties to easily digestible slogans. His writing is more concerned with what happens after disagreement hardens into division—what becomes of empathy, community and individual dignity when people lose the ability, or perhaps the willingness, to hear one another.
Opening track “World Is a Wheel” establishes that perspective through an examination of cycles, change and recurrence. Its premise feels particularly suited to a musician whose career has unfolded across more than 45 years of cultural and artistic transformation. Smith has lived and worked through enough periods of uncertainty to recognize that the crises of the present often carry traces of what came before. The world changes, but certain fears, conflicts and impulses have a way of returning in altered forms.
“Cry for America” brings that observation closer to the current national climate. Concern and disappointment are unmistakable, yet Smith avoids turning the song into a conventional partisan statement. Rather than delivering a political conclusion, he creates space for reflection, allowing unease to exist without dictating precisely how it must be interpreted. The song derives much of its weight from that restraint. Its central emotion is not ideological triumph but concern for what can be lost when division becomes an identity in itself.
That human focus becomes even more pronounced on “Orphans,” where Smith turns toward vulnerability, abandonment and the fundamental desire to belong. Within the broader framework of the album, the song shifts attention away from institutions and arguments toward the people who live with their consequences. Social fracture, Smith suggests, is not merely an abstract cultural condition. It eventually reaches individual lives, shaping who feels protected, who feels forgotten and who is left searching for connection.
“Level Ground” offers perhaps the clearest expression of the album’s underlying hope. After confronting disconnection and uncertainty, Smith continues searching for the possibility of meeting somewhere beyond entrenched positions. The phrase itself carries much of the album’s philosophy: not an expectation that differences will disappear, but a belief that disagreement does not have to eliminate dignity.
It would be easy for an album titled …this is not ok… to remain suspended in frustration. Smith chooses a more complicated trajectory. “A Life In Love” moves the record into increasingly personal territory, while closing track “From the Ashes” introduces the possibility of restoration. By the time the album reaches its conclusion, the emphasis has gradually shifted from recognizing damage toward imagining what might survive it.
That movement is important. Hope here is not presented as a convenient resolution or an attempt to soften the seriousness of the subjects Smith raises. It functions instead as an act of resistance against resignation. The record acknowledges that circumstances can be troubling without accepting despair as their inevitable conclusion.
Musically, …this is not ok… draws from the broad vocabulary Smith has developed throughout his career, moving naturally among Americana, roots, blues, folk, soul and rock. Rather than treating those traditions as clearly separated categories, he allows them to intersect, giving the album a musical identity that feels consistent with an artist who has long resisted being confined by genre.
Recorded in Austin and New York and produced by Smith, the project brings together musicians and vocalists connected to both creative communities, including Julie Slim, Alex Ruiz, Joe Morales, Guy Forsythe, Ange Kogutz, Tony Perrino, David Webb, Hank Soto, Greg Holt and Ernie Durawa. The collaborative nature of the sessions feels especially appropriate for a record built around questions of connection. The album's concerns may begin with division, but its creation is rooted in musicians working together.
Smith's own history gives those concerns additional context. Over the course of his career, he has performed with, opened for or recorded alongside an unusually wide-ranging collection of artists, among them B.B. King, Sheryl Crow, Trey Anastasio, Gregg Allman, Los Lobos, Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, Adrian Legg, Ed Gerhard and Portishead. The breadth of that list reflects a musical life that has rarely followed a single stylistic lane.
His work has extended well beyond performance. Smith has built a parallel career as a producer, recording engineer, author and educator, including work as a senior instructor with the National Guitar Workshop. Since relocating from New York to Texas, he has continued that commitment to developing musicians through Austin's 6 String Ranch, the studio and creative facility he co-founded.
Yet …this is not ok… does not feel designed as a monument to longevity. Smith's history matters here for a different reason: it gives him perspective.
There is a meaningful distinction between an artist trying to discover a voice and one who has spent decades learning how best to use it. Twenty studio albums into his career, Smith appears increasingly interested in the latter. Technique and experience remain part of the foundation, but neither is treated as the point of the exercise. The songs are ultimately concerned with communication—with what can still be said when so much public conversation seems designed to prevent people from hearing one another.
That gives the album a particular relevance to its moment. Anger is not difficult to find. Neither are certainty, accusation or confrontation. Smith does not deny those impulses or pretend that the conditions producing them are imaginary. The title makes his position unmistakable: there are things happening around us that should not simply be accepted as normal.
But recognizing that something is wrong and deciding how to respond to it are different acts.
Smith chooses empathy without confusing it for indifference. He allows disappointment without letting it become cynicism, and he addresses division without attempting to exploit it for dramatic effect. It is a measured approach from an artist whose years in music have seemingly taught him that volume and conviction are not always the same thing.
Perhaps that is where …this is not ok… ultimately finds its strongest purpose. It does not pretend that nine songs can repair a fractured culture, nor does it offer an easy prescription for restoring common ground. What it does suggest is that music can still provide a space in which people stop long enough to listen—a modest proposition, perhaps, but one that feels increasingly consequential.
After more than 45 years of making records, performing, producing and teaching, Matt Smith has every reason to celebrate where he has been. On his 20th studio album, however, he seems more interested in asking where people go from here.
…this is not ok… looks directly at a troubled moment without becoming consumed by it. It recognizes division while continuing to search for connection, acknowledges loss while leaving room for renewal, and refuses to treat despair as the only credible response to uncertainty.
For Smith, the message is not simply that something is wrong. It is that recognizing what is wrong may only be the beginning—and that finding a way back to one another remains a responsibility worth putting into song.
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