by Jim Matheos
Metal Blade Records
This is interesting because it starts with a traditional type fiddle band and then goes to lunch at an alternative cafe. In real life, Jim Matheos is guitarist and composer for Fates Warning, a metal band --WAIT! -- though the metal influence is toned down here. If you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t put the two and two together.
Jim wrote all the music for this one in four months, dispensed with the lyric sheet (hence the title) and kept the 'lectricity turned off. Playing along with him are Michael Manring, bass (used to play with Michael Hedges); Charlie Bisharat, violin; and Mark Zonder, drums, also part of Fates Warning. Zonder’s good. It’s not an ego trip for him, it’s punctuating out the rest of the music.
So what’s it sound like? Pretty easy on the ear, really, though it might sound strange to some. Maybe a bit of rock ’n roll, maybe a bit folksy at times. With this combo, particularly a violin (they don’t call it a fiddle) it’s hard not to grind in a little bit of Appalachia here and there. Though thinking about it, if you plugged a lot of this in, you’d mostly get rock.Mostly, though, it’s pretty serious. Lots of minor keys; music that is thought out rather than smashed together, a good combination of atmosphere and melody, though not stuff you’ll be humming at the rodeo. It’s a music that makes you feel something, and makes you know that Matheos feels something as well. "Tongue Tied" is about the only departure for this atmosphere, taking an pretty durned traditional turn into bluegrass, but, uh, not quite.
Interestingly enough, this thing was recorded in steps. Matheos put down his guitar parts in New Hampshire, the drums were recorded in Los Angeles, the bass in Oakland, the violin back in LA, and the final mix in Toronto. So much for working together. Anyway, it sounds good, and shows that behind a heart of metal beats some real humanity as well.
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