Dorks And Losers

Matt Duke arrived on the music scene a cou­ple years too late. The debut album for this New Jer­sey boy hadn’t yet been released when Zach Braff made Gar­den State, an ode to his home state.

But had Win­ter Child been out, you might have heard at least one track from Duke on that film’s sound­track, given Braff’s pref­er­ence for the indie genre and Duke’s female swoon­ing voice.

The lat­ter is an asset in the music world, hav­ing heard plenty of girls talk end­lessly about John Mayer and hav­ing seen an unhealthy num­ber of his pic­tures tacked up on the dor­mi­tory walls of one too many girls. I haven’t decided if I am envi­ous or jeal­ous (per­haps both) of Mayer’s abil­ity to attract the oppo­site sex, but it’s unques­tion­able that he has influ­enced his fair share of pop’s singer-songwriters.

To Duke’s credit, he doesn’t lay on the come-here-to-me songs as much as other male vocal­ists do. While there is the obvi­ous upbeat dance­able sex track “Sex And Reruns,” I’m sur­prised there aren’t more sen­si­tive tear­jerker bal­lads like “30 Some Days” and “Opos­sum.” I mean seri­ously, these songs get you laid.

Sur­pris­ingly, the some­what cheesy bal­lad “Rab­bit” works well, espe­cially high­light­ing the album’s halfway mark. The song, how­ever, does hit a weird tone dur­ing the last stanza (“Try to break away from your­self / Throw your bro­ken bones in a heap / All the blood and guts are exposed / Your spirit has been beg­ging to leave”). It’s a lit­tle much.

Unfor­tu­nately, the lat­ter tracks don’t help with King­dom Under­ground tail­ing off near the end. Exper­i­men­ta­tion should be applauded, but “A Happy Hooli­gan” mean­ders through so many style and tempo changes that it feels like a drunken hol­i­day med­ley. The angst-filled “Rose” might have worked bet­ter with deeper vocals, but Duke main­tains his sym­pa­thetic ‘it’s my fault’ demeanor. The elec­tric gui­tar solo doesn’t help either.

Duke’s sopho­more album shows a lot of poten­tial, dis­play­ing a ver­sa­tile style and a promis­ing abil­ity to hit the right notes in a bal­lad and in more up-tempo fare. He just needs to get more focused and keep those off-the-wall ideas to him­self. “I’ve Got Atro­phy On The Brain” is a good song but the title could use a sec­ond opinion.

[pho­tos via Sneak Attack Media]
____

Track list:

1. The Father, The Son And The Harlot’s Ghost
2. Sex And Reruns
3. 30 Some Days
4. I’ve Got Atro­phy On The Brain
5. Rab­bit
6. Opos­sum
7. A Happy Hooli­gan
8. Rose
9. Walk It Off
10. Spilt Milk

Pop­u­lar­ity: 5% [?]