The Mattoid - Glory Holy The EP (2007)

I recently met a French exchange student at a bar in North Beach. I told her of my interests in French soccer, French food, and Serge Gainsbourg (pretty much the extent of my French knowledge). She told me that she wasn’t much into le foot, preferred Italian food, and absolutely loved Serge Gainsbourg. It was our discussion of Gainsbourg that inspired this heavily accented French art student to tell me about The Mattoid, or as she pronounced it: Ma•TOOD (neglecting the “The”). This omission, her mispronunciation and the additional complication of The Mattoid being Finnish and not French, temporarily hampered my ability to track them down, but I did, and was surprised by what I found… mainly because “Ma•TOOD” sounds very little like Gainsbourg. Nevertheless, I wasn’t entirely disappointed.

You know immediately that The Mattoid, made up of Ville Kiviniemi and others, has little interest in camouflaging his absurdly humorous lyrics and style behind conventional sounding music. Instead he manufactures a sound that falls somewhere between lounge, folk, alt. country, & classic rock, all accompanied by Gainsbourg meets Wesley Willis-esque singing. Sounds awesome, right? Well, some of it is. The opening track of the EP, "Hey Dude," is an amusing modification of Jimi Hendrix's infamous "Hey Joe"—where Joe is a Dude, my old lady is an Eskimo Lady, and the gun is actually a whaling harpoon. I would tell you to check out The Mattoid’s 2008 album Glory Holy, but all the best songs are on the 2007 EP. So, if you are interested in very unconventional, playfully-humorous Finnish indie rock, check out these tracks off Glory Holy The EP: "Burn and Rob," “Hey Dude,” “Suicide,” and "Breaking Wind."

The Envy Corps - Dwell (2008)

This album will be in my top 10 albums of the year and probably quite high. I heard their song "Story Problem" in the movie Run Fat Boy Run and spent the next morning trying to track it down.. I love that song so much that I was worried about not liking the album. I would prepare myself for disappointment via internal dialogue in which I assured myself that the rest of the album surely could not rule as hard as that song. When I tracked the album down and listened to the guitar dealio that kicks off at 0:32 in the first song ("Wires and Wool") I bet I let out an audible sigh of relief.. you'd have to confirm this with my co-workers.

Other reviews throw out Radiohead and Modest Mouse comparisons.. I can see where they're coming from but I feel those are a little short sighted.. Yeah his voice sounds like Thom Yorke at times and and the guitar work in "Wires & Wool" is pretty Modest Mousy I feel it ends there.. I suppose I shouldn't really start a paragraph like this without being able to back it up with my own comparisons. I'm not going to that for two reasons..
1. ) I'm bad at it
2. ) In my opinion they have bits that sound reminiscent of a ton of little things that I like. It's one of those albums where I can say oh that part sounds just like so and so oh and the drums there are just like blah blah... but really once you get over like 5 comparisons it's not really helpful anymore..

They also get bonus points for a super ruling music video and being funny looking guys (something that oddly always boosts a band in my eyes)..

"Story Problem" and "Wires & Wool" = summer jammy jams...