matt pond PA

Consistency is essentially one of, if not the, biggest set-back in music. It's an epic blunder which leaves the listener sitting in a dark room, stuck in a melancholy state, caught between disappointment and rage pondering two things, "Is there a God?!" and "Did I just blow $15 on this crap?"

Failures in recent music history:

Sammy Hagar.
Jimmy Page pimping out Kashmir.
Whoever introduced Paul McCartney to Wings.
Fall Out Boy and the subsequent bands following in their footsteps.
Whoever thought a rap/metal fusion was a good idea.

That short list didn't include bands who thought doing a concept album was a good idea or groups who went disco or those who just recorded a bad album... and there are hordes of them.

It's what happens when you've been with the same band for too long and/or you just decide that pumping out an uninspired album for the sake of annual record sale projections - it's understandable, we'll still love you pre-insert album title here.

It's the same love that drives a Detroit Lion's fan to getting "0-16" tattooed underneath the team logo on their back.


matt pond PA is a band that never changes. It can be a disastrous thing, if it weren't for the fact that matt pond PA produces some of the best music available.

matt Pond PA can be considered many things: chamber pop, baroque, indie rock - basically anything you'd want to. Headed by the eponymous singer/songwriter Matt Pond who, as one might guess, originally formed the band in Pennsylvania in 1998.

Pond plays the role of the revolving door, tossing out band members and pulling others into his lush, textured world of music. The biggest change followed after Pond uprooted himself from Philadelphia and moved to New York City in 2003.

After meeting Brian Pearl (guitars/piano), Dan Crowell (drums), and Steve Jewett (bass) he would create the strongest lineup to date - at least according to the masses. Everything before that is just as vivid and symphonic as their most recent albums - my personal favorite being The Nature of Maps from 2002.

matt pond PA fabricates a moody atmosphere stationed between three, unrelated terms: rapturous, confessional and the abstract form of Newton's Third Law of motion.

Often incorporating other string instruments, such as the cello and the violin, matt pong PA creates a unique sound not often heard in the genre.

As one of the hardest working bands, at least as far as recording - they've released roughly seven LPs and EPs over the past six years. matt pond PA is consistently talented, creating their brand of mellow indie rock.

The only gripe: as the in-house songwriter, Pond is sometimes too innocuous and too vague. Never does it take away from the music, nor does it make it any less tolerable. At times, the lyrics seem to try to convey too much interpretative surrealism that are too inexplicit to make sense. On most occasions though, the lyrics are just too well written to not be recognized.

"Night comes in and takes our light as we turn once again in the sun; we don't have to drift out of sight, as the shadows will fall and run."

Amid dulcet instrumentals and catchy pop choruses, the integrity of the music is never left out in the rain as catchy hooks aren't relentlessly pounded against your head like a caveman trying to play Neil Peart's drum set; they're more overt and it's the kind of music you want to have stuck in your head as you go to sleep.

PS - You can download "The Freeep" legally and free, here.

www.myspace.com/mattpondpa