Aversion.com
Will Stanford
It took an acoustic guitar and an appearance on MTV for many slow-thinking critics to get to the bottom of Nirvana's beauty. A few fans number The Cure's...
It took an acoustic guitar and an appearance on MTV for many slow-thinking critics to get to the bottom of Nirvana's beauty. A few fans number The Cure's acoustic sets as its crowning achievement. Then again, Dashboard Confessional made unplugged punk rock all the rage again, as a slew of wannabes -- see Onelinedrawing, The Lyndsay Diaries, et. al -- have realized that an acoustic six string and a few open chords are the way into a generation's panties and pocketbooks.
Fortunately for Matchbook Romance and Motion City Soundtrack, their acoustic split EP -- which contains a mere two songs from each artist -- lands closer to Nirvana Unplugged as much as acousta-emo pose-down. A couple young acts weigh in with a pair of nice, simple and minimal songs that don't just give fans a few new cuts over which to obsess, but shows that underneath the clashing rhythms and buzzing guitars, both are stunning songwriters.
Although a couple cuts doesn't necessarily make the bands graduate into the world of superstar songwriters, this split should help the bands melt some of the icy reception new acts receive. Matchbook Romance fares the best, thanks to the band's sparse strumming and ear for dynamics that's not based on stompboxes -- check out the crashing climax of "In Transit," with its keyboards and careening ride cymbals for proof. Singer/guitarist Andrew Jordan leads his crew through a couple tracks that are no less emotionally wrenching and cathartic as if they were plugged in.
Motion City Soundtrack takes a different approach. With shaky power chords chunking their way through verses in "When 'You're' Around," the track relies upon vocals to keep it moving. "Sunday Warning" features a more elaborate arrangement, with lurking keyboards that flesh out the number. Although Motion City Soundtrack doesn't survive the translation to the unplugged world, this split lets the band stretch its legs outside the pacing and power of punk that casts new light on its songwriting.
Absolutepunk.net
Alex Frydman
Rating: 8
Matchbook Romance and Motion City Soundtrack are two bands who have gained an immense following in the past year for their catchy, guitar-driven...
Rating: 8
Matchbook Romance and Motion City Soundtrack are two bands who have gained an immense following in the past year for their catchy, guitar-driven rock styles and equally energetic live shows. On their acoustic split, they prove that even when unplugged, their technical prowess in their respective approaches stays strong and is even enhanced upon.
The CD begins with the two Matchbook Romance songs. "In Transit (For You)," the first song, starts out softly and simply with Andy Jordan's lone voice accompanied by a single guitar. A little over halfway through, the song crescendos, with a full unplugged band and several background voices being added, and then slowly retreats back into the quiet, single guitar before fading away. Like on their past releases, the lyrics are strong, with striking natural metaphors such as, "Scatter me across the sky/I'll shine all night/ And just like a star/ I'll fall for you." Their second song is an acoustic version of "Playing for Keeps," from their most recent release, Stories and Alibis.
"When You're Around," the third song and first Motion City Soundtrack one on the split, at first seems somewhat bare without the moog driven grooves featured on I am the Movie. But it is this absence that allows one to fully absorb the unique richness of Justin Pierre's vocals and how the phrases, while not entirely coherent on paper, form complex tongue-twisters that start and stop in time with the chord changes on the guitar. Finally the split ends with Motion City Soundtrack's "Sunday Warning," which has the fullest sound of all the songs on the split, as it includes a full unplugged band for almost the entirety of the piece. It also continues the tongue-twister lyrics of the previous song with lines such as "train track star love of golf club hunting," and in the end fades into amp squeals.
The only drawback to the album is how short it is (less than 20 minutes total); it's the kind of CD that leaves you wishing that there was some kind of hidden bonus track. I would highly recommend this split to anyone who is a fan of these bands or to anyone who has heard about either one but has not had the time to pick up their past releases. It's the perfect introduction to their differing, yet equally listenable, styles.
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