Album Review

Artist – Matchbook Romance
Album – Voices

Be warned, there may be some swearing in this review. I know, I never EVER swear, but this is just too upsetting to let slide by without the occasional cursing and damning of the gods for subjugating us to this incoherent attempt at artistic merit. Now don’t get me wrong, the music is quite good, it’s the singing, production, lyrics, and everything else that is wrong here. The disc comes in a cool little package with some artwork that reminds me of American McGee’s Alice. It also comes with this black/clear line scheme paper thing, which I guess if you use it correctly with the lyric sheets in the booklet it gives you some secret code to some buried treasure, lost continent, or a message saying “Drink more Ovaltine”. I could be wrong on that last one.

The disk opens with “You Can Run, But We’ll Find You” which is kind of a filler track, and not the best way to introduce the album. It gets a little better on the second track with “Surrender”, which could be the only other single besides the should-have-been-title track-but-named-something-else-for-prosperity-or-whatever. It has a good beat and the vocal changes flow with the hard-hitting drums; however seems about a minute too long with a guitar/drum beat that repeats for the last 45 seconds.

The highpoint would be track 5, “Monsters”, which should have been the title track in my opinion as it mentions the word ‘voices’ quit frequently. It is a good rock tune with a catchy chorus and a creepy video to go with it. Its opening sounds like it belongs in the preview for some creepy carnival movie or the trailer for the Silent Hill movie. The clapping kind of adds to the beat but wears thin after the first 90 seconds.

The next track, “Say It Like You Mean It” is a typical Emo track that has a repeating chorus and a slow beat that gets old pretty quick. With lines like “The only times you really loved me were the times you weren’t sober” the track gets kind of cheesy and monotonous while he constantly yelps “over and over” a thousand times. I swear it sounds like a lighter version of Nirvana’s “You Know Your Right”, which is perhaps the worst song they ever recorded. Luckily it picks up a bit later with the track “Fiction”, which has a faster beat but is not necessarily a great song, just a nice change of pace form the theme of the disk.

The album ends with “I Wish You Were Here”, a slow guitar/vocal track that has a little bit of potential as long as you’re not driving at night trying to stay awake. There is a hidden track that begins 11 minutes and 35 second after “I Wish You Were Here” ends, an acoustic track that is not nearly as good as their previous album’s “Tigerlily”. All in all you be better off buying their first disk, “Stories & Alibi’s” and downloading “Monsters” off of iTunes.

3 out of 10.

-B