Matt Nathanson

“Come On Get Higher”
from the album Some Mad Hope
2007
iTunes

Matt Nathanson has a bit of a conundrum regarding his songs.

Play them in the tender sparse acoustic fashion of his fantastic live album, Live at the Point, and he risks naked exposing just how lonely the album is. Playing the songs swelled up with a full band, a la Beneath These Fireworks, and his songs gets a bit too overblown and glossy, losing the raw emotion that makes his songs sparkle. He strikes a solid balance between the two this time around on Some Mad Hope, for his most consistently pleasing album to date.

The soaring line, “I’m wide awake and so alive,” that flies above a bundle of chiming riffs to open the album on single “Car Crash” attempts to trick listeners into believing that the album will be a cheery affair. The gorgeous guitar-pop tune eventually reveals Nathanson battling apathy rather than an ex’s ghost in the hook, “I wanna feel the car crash, because I’m dying on the inside.” The ex’s are never far behind, though.

It would be easy to write-off Nathanson as some lame lovesick sap if he did not make it all sound so good. The sparse acoustic ballad “Bulletproof Weeks” is one of the few times on the album where it is clear just how melancholy the lyrics are, with only an acoustic guitar and piano backing the despondent tale of a break-up. All the longing may get under your skin by the end of the album, but lines like “I miss the sound of your voice, and I miss the rush of your skin” are too starry-eyed to hate on. Those lines are only half the story of acoustic toe-tapping “Come On Get Higher,“ as the delicious melodic hook “Come on get higher, loosen your lips, faith and desire in the swing of your hips” is the best on an album full of good ones.

Songs where he actually has the girl either focus on the time when he did not or hint that it may not last. Heart-wrenching “Wedding Dress” finds Nathanson preparing for his wedding day with a typically solid hook, “In your wedding dress, to have and to hold, even at my best, I want to let go.” Before long he is emotionally recalling his lonely days without her, “Thought I lost you, thought I lost you, I gave you away.”

Plucky acoustic romanticism fuels his recollections on “Still.” Nathanson reminisces, “I remember hearts that beat air, I remember you and me, yeah, tangled in hotel sheets. you wore me out,” hinting at another love lost before begging, “Come on and drive me wild.” Raggedly strummed bedroom rocker “To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts” succeeds in becoming one of the few feel-good entries with lyrics that make Nathanson’s muse come to life, “She was her mother’s secret, she was daddy’s girl, she brought weekend boys home in her car.”

Some Mad Hope is a delightfully apt title, perhaps only because Some Mad Hope Wrapped In Gooey Melodies So You Forget How Lonely These Songs Are is too long. Nathanson’s lyrics have never sounded so lovelorn, and his music has never sounded so damn happy about it. The album’s acoustic rock sound is just loud enough to keep you from drifting away, and just sparse enough not to overshadow the songwriting.