Matchbox Twenty has a lot to live up to, having released their sophomore effort behind the 10 million record selling "Yourself of Someone Like You."
Rob Thomas and gang regrouped in a North Carolina cabin to begin the writing with producer Matt Serletic after three years, 600 shows and an 18 month stage break for the band.
Thomas has most definitely built up expectations among his fans in the long intermittent time and hopes the new album, "Mad Season by Matchbox Twenty," is an attempt to reveal more of a combined effort by the five band members.
"This record, to us, was the sound of five guys at one time, making the same noise," Thomas said.
And noise there is on this album, as Thomas departs from the guitar-driven rock riffs of his previous success to add a horn section, strings and a whole orchestra in a Beatle-esque "You Won't Be Mine." The hits, including "Push," "3 AM" and "Real World" featured a frustrated lover expressing an emotional and energetic appeal to his listeners.The essential difference in the second effort is an attempt to create mini-epic radio hits of each song. That is, corresponding each of Thomas's vocal appeals to elaborate musical creations with the various additional instruments and studio effects added this time around.
In addition, Thomas wrote much of the album on the piano as opposed to the guitar written tunes of "Yourself."
"Mad Season" has the effect of a mini-orchestral musical creation with background vocalists, occasional prominent Thomas piano play and his heartfelt and embittered lyrics.
Enjoying this album depends entirely on to what degree and what facets of the last album were most appealing. If it was the guitar-driven, post-grunge rock style of M20, then only some of that sound remains.
What creates the essence of this album is Thomas's poetic, elusive and just plain angry words on the forefront of the band's musical experimentations.
At times, Thomas is able to pen very heavy lyrics while unable to correlate the same forceful musical composition, such as in "Black & White People" -- "It's getting' so damn creepy/just nursing this ghost of a chance/the fiction, the romance/and the Technicolor dreams/of black and white people."
While at other times, more of a hard rock sound accompanies lyrics that do not seem to have the same effect, such as in "Crutch" -- "I think there's still a piece of my heart/on your face/it's a shame to let it waste/how does it taste?"
Whereas the hits of "Yourself" came from high-energy, fast paced tunes, it appears that the focus as well as the hits from "Mad Season" will be the slower, orchestra influenced tunes like recent radio release "Rest Stop" and "Last Beautiful Girl." "Bent," "Crutch" and "Stop" are the most remnant of past M20 hits in terms of guitar roots, though they indicate a definite departure, as guitarist Paul Doucette had hoped for: "I was scared that we would make the same record again."
This is most definitely not the case.
As far as the hype created by the Grammy Award-winning single "Smooth" with Carlos Santana, a superbly written song with Santana guitar play is just that and not indicative of the type of album "Mad Season" is.
"Mad Season," though not expected to sell as well as "Yourself of Someone Like You" will be supported by high publicity, heavy radio play and an extensive U.S. tour this summer.
