Matty Ride - Matty Ride [EP]
2014, Matty Ride
2014, Matty Ride
Disco, pop, hip-hop and soul. Welcome to the world of Matty Ride, a retro-pop musical chemist based out of Nashville, Tennessee. With a pleasing voice and an effervescent energy, Ride revives and blends pop music styles from the last 30 years into an eclectic, yet still relevant, ganache. His latest effort, a five-song self-titled EP, shows why there is room for guys like Matty Ride in today’s dance clubs and on the charts.
Ride opens with the wispy pop confection "That Girl", which has enough snap to be danceable but is light enough to get caught up in the pop ether of Top 40 radio. The songwriting is compact and driven by an infectious hook that will keep calling listeners back. The only downfall is the breakdown in the last 45 seconds of the track, which could (and should) be cut from a single release without any loss to the listener. "All Over Again" is straight ahead, angst-filled pop. It's solid album material with a bit of Matthew Wilder flair. "Come on and Dance" is as flagrantly bubblegum as 1980's soul/pop ever was, and is likely to inspire seriously mistaken déjà vu or those who grew up in the 1980's.
"First Day of Summer" is an overexcited piece of fluff that tries to sound modern but ends up very dated. There is serious hook action at work here, but the song is almost a caricature of 1980's dance/pop acts. The video, on the other hand, will give the song serious life. It’s a fun little cinematic escape that features miniature musicians, flying cars and a uniquely comic sensibility that chronicles what happens when geek meet chic. Matty Ride slows it all down for the closing number, "Hold Me Closer". The ballad is a sleepy affair that sounds melancholy in spite of its protestations of undying love. Ride does a pretty decent job on the vocal, but there's no vitality to the arrangement.
Ride opens with the wispy pop confection "That Girl", which has enough snap to be danceable but is light enough to get caught up in the pop ether of Top 40 radio. The songwriting is compact and driven by an infectious hook that will keep calling listeners back. The only downfall is the breakdown in the last 45 seconds of the track, which could (and should) be cut from a single release without any loss to the listener. "All Over Again" is straight ahead, angst-filled pop. It's solid album material with a bit of Matthew Wilder flair. "Come on and Dance" is as flagrantly bubblegum as 1980's soul/pop ever was, and is likely to inspire seriously mistaken déjà vu or those who grew up in the 1980's.
"First Day of Summer" is an overexcited piece of fluff that tries to sound modern but ends up very dated. There is serious hook action at work here, but the song is almost a caricature of 1980's dance/pop acts. The video, on the other hand, will give the song serious life. It’s a fun little cinematic escape that features miniature musicians, flying cars and a uniquely comic sensibility that chronicles what happens when geek meet chic. Matty Ride slows it all down for the closing number, "Hold Me Closer". The ballad is a sleepy affair that sounds melancholy in spite of its protestations of undying love. Ride does a pretty decent job on the vocal, but there's no vitality to the arrangement.
Matty Ride is a serious musician, but at the end of the day he doesn’t take himself too seriously. The Matty Ride EP is a fun excursion of retro pop with a modern edge. There are a couple of missteps here, but nothing overly critical. Fans of pop, dance pop and light soul are going to dig this big time.
Rating: 3.5 Stars (Out of 5)
Learn more at www.mattyride.com. In the mean time, check out Matty Ride's video for "First Day of Summer"!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment