Matthew Sweet
Living Things
On Sale Now
For $12.98

Uninformed listeners might think that power-popper Matthew Sweet fell off the face of the Earth after his early-1990s success. In mainstream commercial, money-making terms there's some credibility to that perception, but artistically, nothing could be further from the truth. This year finds the release of two new records, although Kimi Ga Suki, the better of the two, was originally released last year in Japan and only available as a pricey import. It’s available in the US for the first time this month. The other record, Living Things is his proper 2004 American release, and both albums sound like a return-to-form with grand, awe-inspiring results. Sweet’s beatific, rock candy voice continues to sound as graceful as ever, only this time around, he’s manning the Mackie knobs and learning his way around ProTools. It also helps when you have one of the greatest guitar players of all time with Richard Lloyd (who formed the legendary Television) playing on Kimi Ga Suki.

Though he began to slip beneath the radio radar sometime in the late '90s, Sweet never stopped releasing harmonious pop ornaments to decorate his illustrious landscape, as both Kimi Ga Suki and Living Things embody. He’s been a constant staple on alternative radio and remains a huge draw to Chicago venues. Sweet is a craftsman with an impeccable, yet simplistic knack for strong hooks and melody, effortlessly building them around a stockade of vocal symphonies. He’s never made a bad record even if some have felt he’s milked an established formula based on the success of his magnum opus, Girlfriend. It works to his advantage as he meticulously expounds on his signature sound that is hard to dismiss or dislike. Around the turn of the decade, he started interchanging towards a lusher, sparkling wall-of-sound which has been undressed a bit on Kimi Ga Suki, which is akin to Sweet’s earlier work. “Love Is Gone,” is almost spiritual sounding, built around a gently plucked 12-string and builds to a harmonious realization of love lost that would fit right into composer Jon Brion’s love for lush concord.

The presence of Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks on keyboards and Velvet Crush's Ric Menck on drums should be an indication to the stylish, refined direction of Living Things which even comes across as a freeform jam record of sorts with lengthy outros stretched out like bubble gum. "Dandelion" drops the reliance on major-to-minor chord progressions, instead centering on a single repeating bassline allowing the vocal melody to organically take shape. There's a bit of rock chomp and stomp to several of the songs, but for the most part, this is a gracefully unfolding batch of fetching melodies, cleverly structured and affectionately rendered for those to whom "pop" still means something more gorgeous and sincere than what's on the Top 40 charts. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops and there’s an even a misstep here and there. “Cats and Dogs” gets very redundant and tends to overstay its welcome even if it has a unique barroom stomp that is head-bouncy. "I Saw Red" continues to push Sweet's song craft away from one-dimensional verse-chorus structures toward a more tension-based build and release model that he attempted with Altered Beast. But the lyrics are sometimes buried on Living Things, which is distressing because Sweet’s knack for introspective, existential musing on love, life and everything in between is usually in the forefront and rightfully so.

Sweet is clearly harking back instead of progressively moving beyond his scope despite the improvisational feel to both records, which sounds as if they were recorded instinctively. Kimi Ga Suki is a bit more consistent in execution and ends on a much stronger note whereas Living Things is more of a sketchpad of songs, with the lyrics and melodies occasionally buried to allow the music to take precedence. The standout track on either record is “I Love You” which sounds unlike anything he’s done before with a seductively off-key screech which finds Sweet wailing with an uninhibited raw blues elevation very rarely unleashed before. He’s not afraid to pursue the dark side of love, which always gives his records a strong dichotomy between aching optimism and searing melancholy (remember this is a guy who once wrote a song called “Someone To Pull The Trigger”). His distorted rock screechers are strongly supported by tracks like “I Don’t Want To Know” and “Morning Song” both serving as archetypal mid-tempo Sweet ballads that stands out as some of his best work to date.

All of Sweet’s records grow on you with each listen, as the nuances peek out from beneath the surface and they staple Matthew’s enduring position in the rock arena as one of the most distinctive and significant pop/rock performers of the past decade and a half. Even if either record barely makes a dent on the billboard charts, he could easily continue to endure, booking live shows and creating sorrowful basement gems that only expand on his aptitude and natural ability to produce better pop songs than bands like Maroon 5 and Third Eye Blind could ever manage to pull off. He’s all killer, no-filler, making Kimi Ga Suki and Living Things good places to start (rather than a ubiquitous greatest hits record). All fans of unadulterated, experimental alterna-pop rock the likes of Wilco, owe it to themselves to rediscover this instantly cordial and sonically charismatic performer.

Copyright © 2010 ModernRock.com All Rights Reserved