Audio of Being
There's no doubt Vancouver's Matthew Good can write the kind of hook-filled rock song that immediately imprints itself on the listener's consciousness. Ultimately, though, even if he and his band were able to fill a record with riff-monsters of the caliber of "Hello Time Bomb" (a hit off 1999'sBeautiful Midnight) it would probably become a little tiresome.The Audio of Beinghas its share of big shiny rock tunes, but Good and his cronies want it all--commercial success and artistic credibility. So for every rock & roll blast like "Carmelina" there is an "Advertising on Police Cars," in which the band incorporates a few musical and lyrical ideas from British art-rock icons Radiohead. This subversion of Good's formula doesn't always work, though--the blustery singer still sounds more convincing warbling away on bull-headed tunes like the tense, explosive "Man of Action," say, then he does playing the paranoid android in the aforementioned "Police Cars" or album finale, "Sort of a Protest Song." Still, the Matthew Good Band's fifth studio album contains enough great moments--Dave Genn's guitar in "Man of Action," "Truffle Pigs," and "The Rat Who Would Be King," the chorus in "The Fall of Man," the new wave synth hook in "Carmelina" (even if it does echo "Hello Time Bomb" a little too closely)--to satisfy fans and bring a few new listeners to the fold. It might not make anyone forget Radiohead'sOK Computer, but at leastThe Audio of Beingdares to push a few envelopes, and successfully more often than not.--Shawn Conner