There's also some Dashboard, definitely a helping of Blue Album Weezer, and other various emotive types in there too. You take a 3 1/2-year break between albums, getting a lot better at your intruments and listening to a LOT of Muse ( Absolution, actually), a LOT of Gatsby's American Dream (well, Volcano, anyways), a heaping of Thrice (old stuff and a little Vheissu), Radiohead, probably a little Siamese Dream Smashing Pumpkins too. Amidst all of the mostly-derivative pop-punk and cringe-worthy emo numbers stuck in the album like sugar-sweetened turds, a few promising songs showing some REAL potential for musical maturity and growth stay the executioner's hand of Generic Pop-Punk Band Tag annihilation. A lot of the songs are almost five years old, and as a result the record is extremely uneven, especially lyrically.
Then you drop your very first real full-length record. You release a quickie EP to sate the hype machine, although it was a bit whiny and unfocused, but nevertheless had some pretty riffs here and there, and a definite RAWK side intermingled with the pop-punk, almost emo-ish melodies, as well as a seriously catchy single ("The Greatest Fall Of All Time"). Then, almost instantaneously, your band is shot from relative obscurity onto arguably the biggest independent punk label in the world, personally signed by the label owner solely off of a single crap-quality demo song off your unprofessional band page, amidst a gigantic amount of hype. A dime a dozen these days, but in 1998-99, a bit more special than some bands. You have a respectable local following, a string of uninspired/ridiculous band names (Fizzlewink, The Getaway), and your band plays local clubs like The Loft, The Chance, etc., showcasing some decently-written, catchy pop-punk/screamo hybrid tunes. You're in a local band, aged 18-20, from a dingy little city of Poughkeepsie NY, to be exact. Keep an eye on the band for their eventual metamorphosis, but pass on this EP.Imagine a scenario here.
But a nice guitar sound and well-timed screams does not a successful album make, and with that I must close the book on this one.
#Matchbook romance how to#
He knows how to make even the most mediocre band sound professional as all hell. The EP's overall sound is one of almost reaching complete bombast, thanks to Gurewitz twisting the knobs. I don't mean to rip on this band - I do believe they have a boatload of talent, but it just has to be sculpted more. The lyrics in "Farewell to Friends" are painfully amateur and sophomoric, and the double-bass drum chorus and terribly whiny vocal harmonies that plague "Save Yourself" make me ask myself why I haven't given this CD to my little sister yet. But then "The Greatest Fall (Of All Time)" starts up, and you check the spine on the CD case to make sure it doesn't say "What It Is To Burn."įrom there, it only slides downhill more, with each track getting progessively more generic and cookie cutter. "14 Balloons," while derivative, is just a dynamite opening song, because you have no idea what to expect once it ends. The incredibly short EP starts off with the incredibly short "14 Balloons." It's my favorite track off this 5 song EP, because it's the only track off the disc that doesn't directly ape one of the band's influences. What Matchbook Romance doesn't have, though, is an ounce of originality in their collective bodies. That's not to say it's terrible or anything. So please, if you hate this, don't blame us. I had never even heard the band until I got this EP in the mail a few weeks ago. I posted the story, Brett Gurewitz downloaded them, the rest is history. Basically what happened was it was a slow news day and someone had submitted news about some Poughkeepsie, NY band called the Getaway who had new MP3s up. But besides that glaring omission, we had no input about this band being signed to the big E. No, that does not mean we endorse them in any way.įirst off, they didn't even bother to thank us in the liner notes. Yes, this band got signed to Epitaph because of our website.
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