MATTHEW GOOD BAND The Audio Of Being (Universal) Rating: NN
Considering his self-appointed role as bullshit detector for the Canadian music industry, you’d hope Matthew Good would come up with more than just derivative alt-angst. The Audio Of Being features Good’s usual anthemic power pop songs weighted down by their own self-importance, but the bombast here is taken to new heights. Despite a few neat production tricks, Good only works at full throttle, which means that after a few tracks everything begins to sound the same. Even when he turns down the guitar overload for a string-heavy acoustic ditty, the sledgehammer approach stays. Were the songs any good, the ego might be tolerable. Instead, this borders on insufferable.
