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CD review: The Matches
By Cassie Hood
hoodc@mscd.edu

The Matches Decomposer (Epitaph, 2006)

Puzzles don’t fit together correctly without all the pieces, and it’s impossible to just shove the pieces together and have the end result be something cohesive.

The Matches are a puzzle that would be shot full of holes if any part was removed.

Singers Shawn Harris, Jon Devoto and Justin SanSouci use their vocal cords as musical instruments as they bend them from suave and deep to screeching and feminine. Taken by themselves, the voices come off as superficial and harsh.

Alone, the drums would be unimpressive, but as they merge with every other essential element, they take on a life of their own. SanSouci’s bass falls into the same pattern. In short, if they were buskers the members of The Matches would starve without each other.

Decomposer, the band’s newest release, takes pop-punk to a new level. It mashes reggae beats, pseudo-punk riffs and odd noises into an audio car accident that people just can’t pull their ears away from.

With randomness around each chord, The Matches manage to break through the stereotypical pop-punk many of today’s bands churn out. “You (Don’t) Know Me” features Harris’ mellow, charming voice briefly interrupted by Devoto’s and SanSouci’s scratchy and abrasive backups.

The real jewel of this song, however, is a repetitive sound that resembles a tortured hyena, resulting in something impossible to ignore. The kicker is that this racket comes from a human, not a machine.

“Drive” features witty lyrics such as “What we know about sex, learned from bathroom walls” and “What little (we) know about love, we stole from rock and roll.” With driving drums, synthesizers and frantic guitars, the song evokes clumsy sex with fumbling rhythms, conjuring up images of a teenager losing his virginity after a night of heavy drinking.

Of course, the band doesn’t escape their pop-punk roots altogether. “What Katie Said” screams to be played on the radio. It comes complete with whining and couldn’t exist without the out-of-tune la las. It’s catchy and fun but lacks any of the rarities found on the rest of the album.

The band takes its opportunity to shine in “Salty Eyes” with what sounds like a soft organ playing lightly in the background. Harris wails about corpses, life and giving up. The lyrics are strategically placed with the music. For example, he sings, “Shrill notes begin, the grim violin, then from the silence a violence of sirens,” right as frenzied violins speed up, building the song’s intensity. Then the violins melt into a quiet calm.

Decomposer is surprising. It is one of those albums that shouldn’t be good but manages to stay in the CD player for weeks anyway.