Matson Jones Albatross Mates For Life, But Only After A Lengthy Courtship That Can Take Up To Four Y CD

In the ongoing battle against the hegemony of the two guitars/bass/drums group configuration in rock & roll, Matson Jones at very least deserve credit for creating a unique alternative -- by replacing the guitars with cellos, they've come up with a variant that offers a broad range of tonal colors and sounds much more aggressive than you might expect. The Albatross Mates for Life, But Only After a Lengthy Courtship That Can Take Up to Four Years is a four-song EP from Matson Jones that's practically over by the time you finish saying the title, but offers a quite satisfying taste of what this quartet can do. While there are moments where one senses PJ Harvey's "Man Sized Sextet" provided the template for this band's entire repertoire, the lurching drone of Anna Mascorella and Martina Grbac's cellos meshes beautifully with the crash and flail of Ross Harada's drums, and the urgent vocals by cellists Mascorella and Grbac manage to be abrasive and artful at the same time. As fusions of classical and rock thinking go, this isn't up to the level of Rachel's just yet, but Matson Jones wail harder, and even the weakest moments on this EP are interesting, and that alone would certainly make them worthy of further research. ~ Mark Deming

Matson Jones: Martina Grbac, Anna Mascorella (vocals, cello); Matt Regan (bass guitar); Ross Harada (drums).

Recording information: The Blasting Room (01/2005).