Blue Matches - 'Centre Of The Universe' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Watch The Sun Explode

2. Prophets And Paramilitaries

3. Dickerson Pike

4. Hey, Get Another Beat

5. Fatty Get's Off

6. Left Out

7. Vanity

8. Pear Of Anguish

9. ..."Until Our Hearts Stop

10. White Mouse

11. Upward Arms

12. Epilogue

13. Above The Water

You know when life gets in the way of a million things you want to do? Well that's been happening a lot recently. As such it's taken me a couple of weeks to get round to listening the new album by Blue Matches, (on a thursday straight after work and being awake around 34 of the last 36 hours, sorry Sean) and for that I apologise, because you should be all over this and listening in.

Firstly, they're just a great sounding act. Taking in a spectrum of styles, ranging from Punk and Rock, to a little Pop-Punk riffing and even some Ska (yes to the horns!!) It's like the band took the best of the late 90's Rock scene and tried to develop their own sound using it all as an influence and not settling on one genre. Which is pretty great when it works.

Vocally, there's a definite edge of Gwen Stefani, and hey, I'm all for that. Her vocal style has always turned my head. And then in other tracks, there's almost a little bit of Justine Frischmann from Elastica. Again, I'm old so these ladies were my soundtrack growing up, and I can get a bit from each of those and see this in the Blue Matches Lead vocals.

Musically the songs all sound crisp, with a number of changes of style and tempo throughout. My only real criticism being a song such as 'Prophets And Paramilitaries', which has a real element of old school Offspring mixed with No Doubt could do with a slightly punchier guitar that stands out more and really jumps out at you like the guitars at the start of 'Fatty Get's Off'. This might just be my speakers, but it's a slight improvement that would have made the song stand-out even further.

Speaking of P&P (come on, like I'm writing that over and over again) it really does stand out, and has such cool vocals and tempo changes, I really hope it gets some attention in the form of a video or some mainstream plays.Other tracks such as 'Fatty Get's Off', show off the skills evident from the musicians, the bass work especially here was incredible.

And then there's a track like 'I Swear We're not an Emo band but this song is called “Until our Hearts Stop”' which starts off sounding quite dull if I'm honest, before truly kicking in and kicking off with a great, Punky edge. Again something a little quirky but could be a great set-opener for a live show.

I did say that it's all great when it works, and that brings me to one of very few criticisms, in that a few of the tracks just sound generic, and a little like filler, which is no bad thing, I think if anything it excited me more when a new track started and blew away the cobwebs and expectations from a previous song I wasn't as keen on.

So yes, I like it. More bands like this need to emerge and kick some doors in.