He has no vocal presence and no discernable personality whatsoever. Just like Beneath These Fireworks, Nathanson does absolutely nothing to distinguish himself from the crowd. While this all sounds great on an iPod, however, a little more time could’ve been given to the actual songs and the real problem at hand: Nathanson’s vocal presence. In listening to “Falling Apart”, each element (the piano pumps, the bass, Nathanson’s own multi-tracked backup singing) can be heard rather distinctively - none of that basement muddiness of his early tunes. Every track has enough studio sheen to polish a car (or three). Knowing his mistakes, he largely drops the acoustic-and-mic numbers for a more fleshed-out approach this time around, and boy does this thing gleam.
Some Mad Hope follows his major-label 2003 disappointment Beneath These Fireworks, an album that felt completely robbed of any sense of originality. Nowadays, his gaze is aimed straight at those 30-second spots on MTV shows where a dramatic pop number is played over an even more dramatic scene from The Hills or Laguna Beach or whatever pointless rich-girl drama show comes out next (my bet’s on Boston Harbor).
His first recordings sounded like a one-man Dispatch: acoustic-leaning DIY numbers that were perfect for late-night fratboy singalongs. Oh sure, he’s toured around the nation and has a tighter backing band, but he’s only gotten more generic with time. Fourteen years later, little has changed. Matt Nathanson released his first album back in 1993 - a low-key folk-rock disc called Please.
0 kommentar(er)
