Essentially I’ve been waiting for a new full length record from Mat Kearney for almost 5 years. Yes, ‘Nothing Left To Lose’ was the major label debut which introduced him to the masses 3 years ago, but it also stole a lot of songs from his first album, ‘Bullet’. From the beginning of this new album you can tell something is different. The first song gives the sense that the hip hop flavor from older tracks, like “Undeniable”, has been wiped out and replaced with an album in the image of his past hit single, “Nothing Left To Lose”.

Even though ‘City Of Black & White’ does seem to choose the ‘mainstream singer/songwriter mellow-rock’ approach, moving on from Kearney’s past mix of styles, there is still a sense that Mat Kearney isn’t the traditional poster boy for the mainstream. That may be because one of Kearney’s signatures seems to be taking a fairly straight forward acoustic-based rock song and tweaking the dynamics in his own way. “New York To California” and “City Of Black & White” both have a building ballad feel to them but, instead of going down the predictable road of adding instruments over the course of the track, the song holds back and builds only slightly with the same instruments it started out with. Arguably you want that extra kick of the bass drum or the crack of the snare to come in and it may disappoint some when it never comes, but in the end the songs are stronger for using restraint keeping with how they were probably originally written. “New York To California” is vivid in that way with its lyrics painting exactly what’s happening as the song comes together on the piano.

An album full of potential radio singles like “Lifeline”, “Runaway Car” and “Never Be Ready” spare no expense on chorus’s that get etched into your brain have the potential to overshadow the more subtle “On & On”. Inexplicably I’m drawn to this song over some of the others just listed despite it sticking to a fairly monotone peak. It’s the few lines including “…we can break into a brighter day” that make this song worth something. With the exception of a few tracks, these songs are extremely personal, able to send a piercing shiver through the stereo, and willingly Mat Kearney ….

Although Kearney has stated that this album is about community at its core, and I wouldn’t disagree, there is also a strong sense of overcoming trials. This is an immediate theme the listener is exposed to repeatedly. “On & On” comes through with the triumph line “Nothing worth anything ever goes down easy…” which by itself is just an example, but the same message is accented over and over again including on the single which wants to be closer to love despite “…being one phone call from our knees”.

The music scene doesn’t need another big star who can’t fit their head through a doorway. The only thing the music scene really needs is to have someone who matches experiences and life lessons to music which conveys the same message in tone. Andrew McMahon was able to do that with ‘The Glass Passenger’, the latest release from Jack’s Mannequin, and similarly you get the impression that Mat Kearney is striving to do the same thing.

Album release date: May 19th
Label: Columbia/Aware

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Full Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.