Matt Duke – The Father, The Son and the Harlot’s Ghost

Matt Duke, a singer/songwriter from New Jersey is looking for success in England with his wonderfully inoffensive set of songs on this record. He claims to refrain from writing about the cliché topics of heartbreak and love. He does this successfully, and he does attempt to add in new styles to the otherwise stale market. This record develops on the likes of Jason Mraz, John Mayer and Jack Johnson (and other solo artists beginning with ‘J’) with the inclusion of some rocky and electro styles. However, at no point in this EP does he get away from the problems that mar the careers of other singer-songwriters. The vocals seem bland and don’t provide anything but niceness. Even when he includes a bit of synth in ‘Sex and Reruns’, probably the best song on this EP, the overriding feeling of mine is that of boredom. Yes, the chorus is remotely catchy, and the use of synth adds some extra dimension, but the song still tends to just ramble on without ever developing.

You wouldn’t think that Matt Duke had abandoned the clichés of previous male singer-songwriters. His style remains just as sickly and soporific. Other singer-songwriters have very successfully whined on about heartbreak throughout a whole album, Bon Iver just last year and Damien Rice back in 2002. Their albums have reached high critical acclaim, yet they sang about what Matt Duke seems to think is a tired subject. I can only conclude that it isn’t the sentiment behind the songs that makes the male singer/songwriter genre so stale, but it’s the way that so many of the artists don’t dare do anything new with the music, and certainly don’t even consider singing anything properly heartfelt or honest.

Overall this EP is overly thought out, and in his desperation to try not to stick to the well-worn path of the singer/songwriter, Matt Duke has produced a collection of 5 confused songs with the only common factor between them being that none of the songs separate him from the myriad of soppy, acoustic guitar heavy singer/songwriters.

6/10       Listen to Matt Duke on his Myspace Page.

Jonathan Wilson