Send "Matt Pond PA " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 You could applaud Matt Pond for somehow staying on the periphery of indie rock discussions despite nominal sonic differences between him and, say, Duncan Sheik. But ultimately that puts The Dark Leaves in a position to be judged against music that has so much more to offer. The project's shortcomings are even more pronounced this time out since The Dark Leaves sounds like it's striving and somewhat succeeding in being the band's most rhythmically vital record. Leaves' first third tries to pump itself up with double-time, handclap-sparked rhythms owing something to polite church revivals ("Starting") and rockabilly ("Running Wild", which gives a nod to Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"). But neither comes anywhere close to generating actual friction amidst such downy arrangements. These are mostly compositions of "roots" instruments, including acoustic guitars, pedal steel, and violins. But a cooling wash of synth pads and reverb makes everything flow like a shot of Jäger down an ice luge-- smooth but sickly sweet and mostly numbing. Indeed, there's a narcotic effect to sleepy weepers like "Brooklyn Fawn" and "Specks", so when the ca. 2000 Brit-rock of "Ruins" hits a couple of strange flatted notes on its way up the piano scale, it's a jarring but welcome display of energy.But elsewhere, too much is demanded of Pond, one of the meekest vocalists ever to name a band after himself. His voice isn't unpleasant in a grating or unusual way, but there's an unsettling quality to it that sounds like it's been shot through with Vaseline, eliding over his lyrics so you accidentally hear things like, "I believe in manatees." The actual next line is, "I believe in you and me/ Everything we'll ever see," meaning that Pond is sticking to cryptic-- but not particularly interesting-- stories of lost love and icky Dave Matthews-style romance ("Running Wild"). Pond pleads on "Remains", "If you want my blood, let me bleed/ If you want a ghost/ Then that's what I'll be." But his hitching, strained phrasing conveys bothersome neediness rather than strident devotion. The subject of "Brooklyn Fawn" might be some sort of embodiment of substance-related frailty, but it's so vague that you only recognize Pond's habit of invoking the borough's name in hopes of siphoning some of its urban intrigue. Replace "Brooklyn" with "Teaneck" and it's pretty much the same song....full text |
| Spin |
| Matt Pond PA is often dissed as "lifestyle music": Y'know, tasteful aural wallpaper to decorate the lives of mildly depressed, postcollegiate junior copywriters with cool haircuts. That's not entirely inaccurate, but it's a little harsh. The Dark Leaves wraps Pond's spry, jangly indie-pop melodies in plush, melancholy arrangements. It's rarely as lively as 2007's Last Light, but the interplay of organ, cello, and acoustic guitar on "Brooklyn Fawn" has a genuinely comforting warmth....full text |
| Popmatters |
| Oh, competence! Sweet, dull, well-meaning competence—you are Matt Pond’s greatest virtue and you are the noose around his neck. Look what you have made of this man with a fine melodic ear and an admirable work ethic: you have rendered him catatonic. His pleasant, well-executed milquetoaste yup-folk can barely summon the energy to penetrate the stereo’s speakers. Competence, your flawlessly inoffensive siren song has turned a human into a bran muffin. Matt Pond PA will drive you to the airport. It will loan you 20 bucks when you’re down on your luck. It will let you borrow its books and never bug you about returning them. But when you’ve got a good bottle of whiskey and a long Friday night stretching out in front of you, it’s not the band you call, unless you’re looking for a designated driver. Which is weird, because Pond’s new record The Dark Leaves is clearly supposed to be a cigarettes-and-Jack-Daniels kind of thing. From the eerily distorted pastoral scene on the cover to the darker lyrical content and the high school-level poetry in the press kit (in order to make this album, Pond apparently “hacked off a piece of his own fate,” whatever that means), it seems this album is supposed to be Pond’s harrowing, dark-night-of-the-soul, Nick Drake moment. Instead, it’s pretty much more of the same lush, tour-ready indie rock tunes that MPPA has been trafficking since they actually lived in PA. That’s not bad thing, exactly—despite the almost toxic level of snark in the preceding paragraphs, I think Pond does what he does fairly well, and his work is just as good as or better than that of more famous analogues like Pete Yorn, Sondre Lerche, and Badly Drawn Boy. He can construct a catchy mid-tempo shuffle better than most, and his simple pop melodies have an easy momentum buoying them. At his best he blends melancholy folk-rock with infectious, polished pop, as in the catchy opener “Starting”. “Specks” is a bright and hopeful love song with a melody so warm and sweet and pleasant that you want to take it home to meet your parents. There’s good stuff buried here and there among the dross, and more than one of these melodies might get stuck in your head....full text |
Matt Pond PA lyrics
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