Artist	Song
Matt Pond PA	Last Light
Matt Pond PA	Fairlee
Matt Pond PA	The Trees And The Wild
Matt Pond PA	If You Want Blood
Matt Pond PA	Closest (Look Out)
Matt Pond PA	In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Matt Pond PA	Halloween
Matt Pond PA	A Million Middle Fingers
Matt Pond PA	Giving It All Away
Matt Pond PA	So Much Trouble
Matt Pond PA	Magic Boyfriend
Matt Pond PA	Locate The Pieces
Matt Pond PA	Green Shirt
Matt Pond PA	Several Arrows Later
Matt Pond PA	Close Map
Matt Pond PA	Spring Provides
Matt Pond PA	Claire
Matt Pond PA	People Have A Way
Matt Pond PA	Reading
Matt Pond PA	Emblems
Matt Pond PA	Winterlong
Matt Pond PA	Basement Parties
Matt Pond PA	Closer

Comment:

Matt Pond as his shifting band of players have been quietly putting out decent if underachieving mellow indie pop for a decade or so, developing a healthy catalog of material. They easily check off a lot of the essential indie rock boxes -- distinctive vocal stylings (reminiscent of an American Robert Smith, at least on the earlier work), pleasant melodic lines, hipster covers (Neutral Milk Hotel, Elvis Costello & Neil Young on this mix), and a few great catchy pop tracks. Unfortunately, none of their albums has ever thoroughly wowed me (though they've been steadily increasing the pop quotient, particularly on the last couple albums & EPs; the more melancholy early stuff isn't capture on this mix). While the music is sturdy enough, there's an absent spark -- you listen waiting for the killer chorus to come in, or the dynamic shift that perks up your ears, and it rarely comes. So you end up with a verse that sounds good for 45 seconds, and then it just keeps going. Still, a few songs are great ("Last Light," "Halloween" and "So Much Trouble" are my faves), and culled down to the catchiest tracks you've got a solid 80 minutes of what "alternative" radio would have sounded like if it didn't go so horribly, horribly awry in the mid-90s.

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