Monsters After touring for nearly a year and a half on their debut LP, Stories and Alibis, Matchbook Romance buckled down in Long View Farm studios in Massachusetts to write the follow-up to their breakthrough onto the emo scene. Voices features a departure from the sound of their debut, and charted at #43 on the Billboard 200 upon its release on Valentine’s Day in 2006. Based on the strength of the lead single, “Monsters,” Matchbook Romance proved that they were capable of being much more than just your “stereotypical emo band.” Instead, Voices led the band down a darker path and expanded their audience along the way. The set was produced by John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Death Cab For Cutie) and the artwork was designed by Shawn Harris of The Matches. Voices is a record that I found immediately gripping and urgent, and I’m so glad that Matchbook Romance took this big risk on their sophomore effort.
From the first few piano notes and guitar strums of “You Can Run, But We’ll Find You”, you could tell that Matchbook Romance were going deep into the darkness and seeing what they could find along the way. The stunning introductory track is brilliant in a myriad of ways: lead vocalist Andrew Jordan’s vocal style is improved and captivating, the band’s musicanship is tight and play off each other well, while the production is top-notch. By the time the song reaches its crescendo, you’re more than willing to go along for the ride that Matchbook Romance have invited us into.
”Surrender” was the second and final single to be released from Voices, and it features a very accessible sound fit for emo/punk radio while Jordan sings emphatically on the chorus, “Don’t waste your breath / Save your tears for somebody who believes / I can’t help myself, let alone you / I’m tired of making love to a memory / I give up.” It’s heart-wrenching from both perspectives of reading back these lyrics, plus listening to Jordan’s vocal performance that makes you feel that pain. Deep cuts like “My Mannequin Can Dance” rock with a profound urgency and showcase the band’s willingness to take a big swing in order to make an impact on the music scene. The down-trodden slow burn of “Good, Like Two Shoes” is the closest that Matchbook Romance gets to the pacing of Stories and Alibis, yet the song adds in some great orchestral sections and a big crescendo in the end to prevent it from falling into a similar pattern of the debut.
”Monsters” is an undeniable single that is largely built around the opening guitar riff from Ryan “Judas” DePaolo, while the decision to add hand claps to the beat was brilliant. It invited audience participation when the band played it live, and the chorus of, “We are / We are the shaken / We are the monsters / Underneath your bed / Yeah, believe what you read,” still sounds as massive as the first time I heard it. The guitar solo at the tail end of the track is fitting, and it makes for another memorable moment in the sequencing of Voices.
”Say It Like You Mean It” is an eerie ballad that largely stays within the same note in the verses, and even the louder moments of the chorus don’t seem to save it from being a rare miss from the band. Luckily, “Portrait” picks right back up where songs like “Surrender” and “Monsters” left off with a great pacing and an anthemic chorus of, “Look, look a little closer, and then / Shut off / You should have known this wasn’t a truce / Keep taking your cheap shots / Until I’m black and blue.” The pointed lyrics fit the mood of the instrumental sections perfectly, and continue to paint with vivid, yet darker, colors.
The brooding vibes of “Singing Bridges (We All Fall)” seemed like it was a little ahead of its time when it came out. By the time other bands had caught on to this stylistic change, Matchbook Romance couldn’t commercially capitalize on this type of sound. Even more abrasive songs like the hard-hitting “Fiction” all point to more examples of the band taking big swings in their evolution to make a name for themselves. A rare missed opportunity comes in the form of “What A Sight” that slow-builds to what I thought would be a shimmering chorus to break through the darkness, yet the band ends up with a bummer chorus to fall back down into the brooding environment that largely dominates Voices.
The whispery singing on “I Wish You Were Here” are a bit sleepy and lullaby-esque, but the guitar playing matched with Jordan’s vocal performance is quite gorgeous in its delivery. The song never really takes off, and it ends up bleeding into a bonus track to close out the (to this date) final chapter of Matchbook Romance. The band has since opened up the vaults recently for the B-side of “Something Worse Than The Night” that sounds like a time capsule from that era of the band, and I love the way that it was recorded and released now to celebrate twenty years of Voices. Later this week, the band will expand upon the anniversary of the record with an additional song called “A Beautiful Day”. For now, let’s applaud Matchbook Romance for being willing to take this risk on Voices to leave a lasting legacy in the emo/punk movement of the 00’s.