Matt Wolejsza’s “The Beast I'm Meant to Be” Isn’t Loud For No Reason

The best part about a debut album is when it’s not trying to be. It arrives as is, not algorithm-friendly nor for anything outside of itself. That’s the exact posture of The Beast I’m Meant to Be by Matt Wolejsza the moment it begins to play—unfiltered, personal, and deeply artistic instead of something like a polished, packaged product.

Hailing from Gaithersburg, MD, Matt Wolejsza is heavily influenced by Metallica, the very band he studied intensively since childhood while learning guitar. His passion led him to Baltimore songwriter community led by Diana Hanson-Young. With producers Tim Boate and Brian Feinstein, he debuts a 10-track album, The Beast I’m Meant to Be, that channels lived experience into something loud and unapologetic.

There’s no other way to open the album other than the complete chaos that Stupidity Gone Viral brings. The guitars are fast while the drums sit slightly frantic underneath. You’ll get no poetry, no subtlety— just loud, blunt lines ripped out of a doomscrolling fever dream and spiraling over fake news hysteria, tribal internet culture, and comment-section warfare. The best part? It sounds like infected by the same confusion and overload it criticizes.

The Beast I’m Meant To Be follows, and as a title track, it did not disappoint. Think of an inner conflict translated into a sound that you can shout back. You’ll get rejection, acceptance, rage, and resignation in jagged, pounding rhythms. The chorus hit like graffiti over concrete walls, bold and almost impossible to ignore.

The Lion Must Roar stays true to its name. And it’s not some kind of National Geographic documentary, but a full-volume distortion that describes wildlife as a whole system. It’s pressure, movement, and imbalance compressed through fast riffs and bold drum hits.

And just when you thought you found a breather in the midst of that volume, When A Heart completely fools you. You’ll find it slow at first, until it stops holding its breath, snaps back, and finally lets it all out. And if the first few tracks felt like pure chaos, this one is written in a more restrained, reflective way. Winding Road follows the same format, except Wolejsza delivers songs with no clean hooks; it’s just loose and unstructured, like he left it with instability on purpose.

But this album isn’t all about volume, because One More Hug shows a more human side of him. The loss of his cat Bonnie sits at the center of this song, offering something exposed, quieter, and deeply personal.

You’ll definitely hear his influences in this album, especially in his guitar work, but it’s distilled enough not to sound like an imitation. What you’ll get is a sound built by pushing boundaries and limits, the kind that feels real rather than forced, and clearly belongs to him.

And while everything falls for empty, hollow loudness, Wolejsza holds on to substance. Aside from his musicality, his songwriting holds weight instead of burying it underneath the volume. It’s less about filling space and more like saying things that actually matter—whether it’s about the internet and social media’s destructive influence, mental health, or his personal struggles, he makes sure it reaches you, loud and clear.

At its core, this album feels intentional rather than performative. It’s like intensity and meaning have finally found a kind of balance before it overwhelms everything single thing around it. And for a debut album? It matters. Because when an artist chooses direction and compelling musical narratives over perfection and attention, it stops being music and starts like something that exists beyond sound.