They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s is pretty easy to judge an album by its cover. If there are bright covers with smiling faces, it’s safe to say it that you will be hearing pop music, if it a bunch of disinterested dudes in muted colors, you more than likely in store for some emo. When I first saw the major label debut of Mat Kearney, Nothing Left to Lose, my assumption without listening to it was that it would be a country album, but I went ahead and gave it a listen anyways. And after listening to to I realize I was extremely wrong.
The album starts off with Undeniable, a typical singer-songwriter vide with a strumming guitar, then all of the sudden dude starts rapping. Okay calling what Mat does rapping is like calling what I do on a golf course golfing; it more like spoken word with a slight cadence. That’s not to say that the rapping takes away from any of the song yet helps builds layers to the songs here. This leads to instant comparisons to Everlast, formally of House of Pain who introduced rap-folk while rap-rock was rising, but Kearney has a much better singing voice that at time sound reminiscent of Chris Martin of Coldplay. In fact, this album could be what it may have sounded like had Martin grown up in the Pacific Northwest listening to hip-hop in fact the piano driven All I Need that builds up to a climax with a strings section sounds like a lost Coldplay track.
The surprise of the sound is almost trumped by finding out that Kearney is classified as a Christian artist. Don’t worry, the former youth pastor doesn’t utilize any preachy lyrics on the album, instead they are more personal and introspective and is much more similar to secular music. Sure you can find Christian themes if you look deep enough, but you can do the same for many other bands most notable U2. Kearney effortlessly blending pop, folk, rap, country, rock should captivate any real music fan.
Song to Download - In the Middle
Nothing Left to Lose gets a
![Terror Alert Level: High [ORANGE]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhebDZ0qqwOVKMZj7oFSUe8Hm3ax54U9Hp1fThJPgiddTyzcdwx_5SV6E3b7hkKyxbaDiym4COmUXT2YJnsKCUjBHI_a2xZtNoY7qFQRslP5AGO5gLkJwn2ZbO0wIF80ycbKrgPPA/s400/small_high.png)
on my Terror Alert Scale. 
Ha.. someone handed that to me outside the Metro - I haven't listened to it yet.
ReplyDeleteGood review of Mat's music. I have both of his albums and they really grow on you. Have you been to matkearney.com? He has an interesting EPK video on his Media link.
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