Rating: 88% This is the story of a fairytale come true. Featuring in fairyland is Poughkeepsie, NY's Matchbook Romance, formerly known as The Getaway;...

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Rating: 88%
This is the story of a fairytale come true. Featuring in fairyland is Poughkeepsie, NY's Matchbook Romance, formerly known as The Getaway; 4 youngsters that Mr. Brett Epi-Gurewitz himself discovered when he was browsing the net and came across a posting on (my good friend Aubin's) punknews.org. It lead him downloading their song "Ex Marks The Spot" and resulted in this 5 song EP on Epitaph produced and mixed by the label's chief himself and a full-length that is to be released later on, with producer Joe Barresi (Pennywise, Weezer, Jesus Lizard, Melvins, ...) How lucky can one get, or... are they really that good indeed?

I think their music is not all that original, but I doubt if they ever aimed for it to be that. There's good elements of pop-punk a la New Found Glory mixed with the screamo vocals known from various bands that use this technique of combining screamy with melodic singing. You know, the emotional-hardcore combination that's to be found in numerous other bands like Thrice, Finch and the likes, although the pop-melodies are far more liberally sprinkled here. Add to this some serious hooks and kicks in their guitarplay, cfr. Staring Back and some emotional approach to top it and you have a band that is ready to be released onto the masses.

Highlights on this short disc are "The Greatest Fall (of All Time)" that was also featured on the last Atticus comp and which is maybe the hardest song of the five due to the abundant screams and fierce guitars. "Farewell To Friends" is my personal favorite for the sheer simplicity of playing a melodic driving song as it should be played, think The Ataris. Finally "Save Yourself" where the crunchiness of the guitars and the full force of the vocal capabilities shows up in 3 layers.

Watch out for these guys who woke up from a dream that became a reality. It was not pure luck, they just ARE this good! It's somewhat surprising that his band is on Epitaph maybe, because I had the impression they were focusing less on this type of popular punkmusic the last few years. Anyway, here's a guy that will be looking forward to that new album. These 5 songs convinced me OK.

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Even the debatably largest punk label in the world, Epitaph, has finally broken in and accepted some more "poppier" style bands, its first being Matchbook...

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Even the debatably largest punk label in the world, Epitaph, has finally broken in and accepted some more "poppier" style bands, its first being Matchbook Romance. A solid 4-piece band from New York, they play a sort of fast, energetic pop punk with a definite hardcore edge. Jammed onto this EP are 5 great songs that take what Rufio and Name Taken do (solid pop punk) and add a sort of hardcore tinge to it (an obvious modern-day example of such a blend would be Finch) and even include the usual soft emotive sound in The Greatest Fall's intro.

The Greatest Fall (Of All Time) is of course the single, first released on Atticus II, and is easily the most powerful song on the disc. With it's infectious, catchy chourus, "I set myself up for the greatest fall of all time," above the screams of another singer ala hardcore style, the song bounces from hook to hook. It's a simple, but well-crafted pop/hardcore punk tune (mostly pop). Still, most of us were anticipating the other tracks; could the band parallel the simple enjoyability found in The Greatest Fall? Hollywood and Vine and Farewell To Friends were two solid songs, with similar hooks and melodies in the vocals, and non-stop raging guitars. Constant octave guitars in the vein of Rufio, Saturday Supercade, or Staring Back without the technicalities in the guitars. More simple, but still heavy and fresh as ever.

Matchbook Romance's debut EP is a consistently hard-hitting, catchy, poppy CD with heavy chords and guitars that don't get too complicated and vocals that are non-stop catchy melodies. Imagine the construction of Staring Back in the guitars and a somewhat more muffled Kenny of the Starting Line in the vocals and add that necessary, but rare hardcore scream in the background. A great debut for a band who's bound to turn heads in the future, much in the same way as bands like Finch and A Static Lullaby are. Don't expect the almost constant hard sound of ASL or even as much as Finch, but the influences are obvious.

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