fixxxerny's Full Review: Mad Season by Matchbox Twenty
I know this album is about a year old as of June, 2001, but this review is inspired by Matchbox Twenty's new StoryTellers on VH1, as well as by their summer concert tour.
Matchbox Twenty came out as the same time as Third Eye Blind, and I think it's fair to say the two were almost interchangeable at first. Things thankfully change, and bands begin to take on individual tones.
When 3EB released "Blue," it was a somewhat dramatic departure from their original sound. I can't say this release is that big a change, but the songs remain of a higher quality than most pseudo-rock/Top-40 acts. They put together an excellent set of just about one hour in length that runs through mightily fast.
"Angry" begins with a melodic acoustic guitar which sets a tone for this entire album. It's deeper and more involved than their debut. Within the first minute, you have transformed this from an acoustic ballad to a hard rock song, proof that the boys know how to play their instruments. It's hard not to like this song when Rob Thomas sings "And it's good that I'm not angry / I just need to get over." It hits you where it counts.
From the title alone, "Black & White People" sounds like some kind of racial equality ballad. It's less that and more of an inspection of the general human condition and how, despite the world of differences between us and them, me and you, we all have times where there's "one more day down / everybody has those days." Indeed, everything is alike: "the fiction, the romance / and the Technicolor dreams / of black and white people."
If you listen and hear a horn section, you are not alone! Horns play a big part in this album. (As a side note, I wonder how this will pay off in concert.) Horns come through on "Crutch" as well, a song about being on the down cycle of life. This one requires a few listens, given the nature of lyric delivery. It helps to have the lyrics handy so as to read along with the group on this song.
Difficulties end after "Crutch" with the next three songs: "The Last Beautiful Girl," "If You're Gone," and "Mad Season." "Girl" is a song about lost love. Thomas' occasional piano work brings the piece along nicely. "Gone," the sobby Top-40 hit, deserves the ad nauseum award for a played out track. It's a more mellow continuation of "Girl." "Mad Season" picks up the volume and the pace. It's rather obvious that it's another boy-girl song, but in a different tone. Whereas "Girl" and "Gone" were more somber, "Season" is angry! "I need you now / do you think you can cope / you figured me out - that I'm lost and I'm hopeless."
The lovelorn nature of this album continues with "Rest Stop." Again, a woman has done the man wrong, but this time, she decides in the middle of a car trip that it's all over. Tough stuff, especially when you figure Rob Thomas writes about his life.
"The Burn" is a short, almost nothing song, and it feels like filler. There's nothing big here, and if the group didn't release "Bent" as their first single, perhaps "The Burn" wouldn't feel like such nonsense.
"Bent" was the original single. You might have seen the video; Rob Thomas repeatedly gets beaten. The For once, we have a song not about being burnt by a woman. Hooray! It's a song about being fed up with life in general and becoming jaded, or 'bent.' I can appreciate this. What I can't take is a song like "Bed of Lies."
"Lies" has a roots rock/country twang to it, and it's about a broken relationship. Oh, poor Rob. Can't you ever find happiness in a relationship?
"Leave" is the eleventh song on the album. By now, I feel this is the eleventh song. Your heart will NOT flutter when you hear "I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me." The slow beat gives way to "Stop," a song with good rhythm, but lines that reach. Simplicity can be a good thing. I question it here: "Yes it's true that I believe / I'm weaker than I used to be."
The album closes with "You Won't Be Mine," a song that has a 1940s slow piano jazz beat to it, something you expect would be sung in a cabaret. Honestly, I like this experimentation, and lyrically, it appears that the boy in the bot-girl situation has made the decision to not have anything. Way to go, Robbo!
Thematic and formulaic in lyrics at times, musical innovation and expansion is apparent here as well. Not as dramatic as "Blue" was for 3EB, "Mad Season" deserves a spot on the shelves of rock lovers.
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