Matt Costa - Unfamiliar Faces
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CD Details
Artist: Matt CostaEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2008-01-22
Music Label: Brushfire Records
Soundtracks:
- Mr. Pitiful
- Lilacs
- Never Looking Back
- Emergency Call
- Vienna
- Unfamiliar Faces
- Cigarette Eyes
- Downfall
- Trying to Lose My Mind
- Bound
- Heart of Stone
- Miss Magnolia
Music reviews of Unfamiliar Faces
Music Review: Fantastic sophomore effort
Rating: 5 Stars
Often, the dreaded sophomore jinx comes when an artist, who's had years to hone songs, only spends a few months to a year putting together a second effort. /Unfamiliar Faces/ doesn't suffer from this problem at all.
Description of Unfamiliar Faces
When Matt Costa sat down to write what would become Unfamiliar Faces, the follow-up to his 2005 debut full-length Songs We Sing, the singer/songwriter took his most treasured belongings and put them on a shelf -- then stared at them and just let the memories flow. "That way I could see everything that I loved," he explains (the collection included his favorite books, a giant wooden pipe, and a box of old 45-speed records from the late 1950s). "I let my imagination wander. Regular life isn't as exciting as an imaginary life." On the strength of the folky, beautiful Songs, which displays his gentle artistry and skillful acoustic guitar playing, Costa earned a rep as an L.A. buzz act, crisscrossed the U.S. in a van, and performed at all the major North American music festivals including Coachella, Lollapalooza, Sasquatch, Bonnaroo, and Austin City Limits among others. Invigorated by onstage collaborations with tour openers like Los Angeles rockers The 88 and Elvis Perkins, he returned to California and wrote nearly all of Unfamiliar Faces in Sacramento, then recorded the album in the spring of 2007 in Santa Ana, again with Dumont, even inviting Adam Merrin from The 88 to play keys on a few tracks. It's Costa's second release on Brushfire Records, the label co-founded by Jack Johnson, who has been a longtime supporter - the two fellow musicians have toured together several times and collaborated on numerous soundtrack projects.Matt Costa's Unfamiliar Faces continues to demonstrate the facility with pop craft and disparate influences he displayed on his 2006 debut, Songs We Sing. One listen to Costa's work and it's obvious why Jack Johnson felt compelled to sign him to his Brushfire Records label, as he shares Johnson's fondness for direct, agreeable alternative pop. But Costa leans slightly more into the alternative side of that equation on Faces. He sounds just as comfortable working off a Brit-pop template as he does with incorporating bits of bands like the Smiths (especially on "Vienna") and straightforward, contemporary sounds a la Counting Crows, or the quieter moments in Dave Matthews's catalog. Songs like "Mr. Pitiful" and "Cigarette Eyes" show off convincing choral hooks, and his unadorned, relaxed singing style is flexible enough to give ballads like "Heart of Stone" a compelling, folksy melancholy. It isn't quite flexible enough, however, to handle the drama of something like "Bound," with its bluesy, Jeff Buckley-esque grandeur. But it's to Costa's credit that he tries to stretch himself and find the edges in his smooth, easily digestible songwriting instincts. --Matthew Cooke
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