Matthew Pickup and the Movement - Pursuit of Symmetry [Album]

Self Released

October 3, 2009, 04:16 PM

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"If Nickleback went acoustic." If that phrase doesn't send you into spasms of fear you are either not human or a Nickleback fan (what's the difference I hear you ask?) OK well it's not quite as awful as that, but the debut album by Canadian troubadour Matthew Pickup and his band The Movement certainly comes close on occasion. 14 tracks of over-earnest, acoustic soft-rock fade in and out of view over nearly an hour. An hour which I spent staring at the ceiling. The press release comes with the slogan 'for fans of Wilco and The Beatles'. "Great", I thought, "I love Wilco and The Beatles so surely I should love this." Needless to say I was very wrong.

From the first bar of the first track I knew exactly what I had in store and it was a far from an enticing prospect. What we have here is unabashed Americana at it's most self-satisfied and middle of the road. 14 achingly similar tracks of heart-on-sleeve belly-aching. Matthew Pickup has a pleasant voice (sounding not dissimilar to a young Eddie Vedder) but he rarely strays out of the middle range and there are no melodies here that particularly stick out. The press release ear-marks tracks 1, 2 and 5 as stand-outs but honestly I can't see why, the whole thing just coalesces into a vaguely pleasant, infuriating mush.

The over-riding impression is of a talented session musician trying his hand at serious song-writing and coming up slightly short. There are some perfectly adequate songs to be found within and a few splashes of invention every now and then ('Make Me Move' even has a riff) but these moments are few and far between. The acoustic soul-searching only gives way once on the retro rock and roll of 'Trouble City,' and even this feels unconvincing. As this was the second track I expected the album to continue in this mildly eclectic vein, sadly this was not to be. We have 2 modes to analyse here, first off there's the reflective, mid tempo acoustic love songs ('Colour's Fade', 'Entrenched In Comfort', 'The Here & Now') then there's the slightly more upbeat, reflective acoustic love songs (everything else). The album is rounded off by the jazzy Jamie Cullum-isms of 'My Mine' and the hushed Nick Drake-isms of 'What's Real,' which both left me cold.

The tempo never varies, the time signature only alters twice and there is not one memorable lyric and/or melody to be found no matter how hard I listened. I genuinely have nothing else to say, there's just nothing to it at-all, there's not even much style to make up for the lack of substance. No doubt these guys would be a great bar band but they really didn't need to release an album.


Tracklisting:
1. Make Me Move
2. Trouble City
3. Wanted You To Know
4. Entrenched In Comfort
5. Livin' Again
6. Colours Fade
7. Sore
8. My Mine
9. Poor Man's Riches
10. Oh, Sarah Jean
11. The Here & Now
12. Peacekeeper
13. Close To The Bottom
14. What's Real?

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