REVIEW: Matthew Good Band, Underdogs (Mercury)
- Daniel Aloi
Compromise. Any band with a major label deal knows it well. And it's what I hear a lot of in the new Matthew Good Band album, their U.S. debut. When I saw the MGB play a North By Northeast showcase in Toronto in June 1997, what impressed me was the obvious debt their sound owed to other meaningful Canadian bands like 54-40 and The Tragically Hip.
Now, though, that sound has been almost entirely scrubbed of its Canadianness. The Vancouver-based band now more closely resembles the Tonics and Matchbox 20s of the American FM world than anything like 54-40... not a bad thing, if you're fans of those two bands (I'm not). Good now says he hates "people who emulate bands." There remains a lingering, sublimated echo of The Hip, particularly in Good's vocals, but that's about it for any connection with his band's past. Onward into the saturated American radio market, with a stab at commerciality. It seems a little too calculated, but...
The album is very powerful-sounding, interminably edgy, and the songs are largely emotionally driven. I actually could bring myself to like the premise of "Middle Class Gangsters" and "Look Happy, It's the End of the World," sounding like some great social commentary of old from the likes of the Manic Street Preachers or Pure. In the lyrics, there's a lot of cynicism about material values, in songs like the single "Indestructible," the existential "The Inescapable Us" and "Everything is Automatic."
Chalk one up for artistic integrity.
With other influences including the Pixies and Afghan Whigs, and that aforementioned Tonic/20 sound, the MGB should now have no problem fitting in (and being forgotten) on American radio. But at what cost? It's kind of a shame, really. There are plenty of Vancouver and Canadian modern-rock bands who deserve a shot at success and still plow their own course, from Odds to Pure. Maybe given a little growth, and a chance to experience what U.S. success really smells like, the Matthew Good Band may become nostalgic for its days as a platinum independent Canadian act.
