October 25, 2012
Before we get too far, let’s get it out of the way: Mumford and Sons. There—it’s out on the table. Matrimony has been tagged with the comparison time and again on blogs and discussion boards all over the Internet, but the comparison is too easy and ultimately misleading.
In that they boast a charming, churning folk-rock sound and have a real party up on the stage, the comparison certainly makes a margin of sense. But last Thursday night, Matrimony proved themselves far more than Mumford mimics.
The separation from the Mumford archetype begins with the vaguely Fleetwood Mac matrimonial set-up happening with the band itself—the nucleus of the band being the married couple of keyboardist/vocalist Ashlee Hardee Brown and guitarist/vocalist Jimmy Brown, who are joined by the Ashlee brothers C-J and Jordan, and then the lone outsider Alex Watson on drums.
Even though Matrimony makes general gestures in the direction of country and bluegrass music (just as is the case with Mumford and Sons), their music ends up shooting for the stadium seats, not the backwoods barrooms. Their songs have an insistent energy, with big pulsing keyboard licks from Ashlee and rhythmic delayed mandolin from C-J that could not be any more overt in its homage to The Edge’s swirling guitar textures.
Taken altogether, their stage presence is one of muted fury; they mean business once they are up there under the lights. Almost every song of their set finished with a bang—a final rush of energy—to the point that they sometimes caught the audience unawares. By the end of the set, however, they very nearly had the chai-sipping and largely lethargic audience of the Barn up on their feet. Breaking from their rigid stage set-up, C-J and Jimmy roamed the stage, interacting with other band members, infusing the performance with its first real dose of bluegrass spirit.
As for Matrimony’s opener, Jess Klein, I tried really hard to like her. There is a lot to admire about her: a charming stage presence, a pretty voice with some twang slipped into the phrasing, and—overshadowing those other recommendations—she is a Hamilton alumna.
But Klein simply failed to impress. That’s not to say that she is not an admirable musician or songwriter; it’s simply that so many others out there do it so much better. Her entire performance—and her larger body of work—boils down to that of a second-rate Shawn Colvin. That reflection might sound sad, but it’s worth acknowledging that Klein is navigating a thickly-populated genre of folk music.
Ever since the unprecedented success of folky singer-songwriters like Colvin and Lucinda Williams some 20 years ago, admirers (and imitators) have flooded the music market. Jess Klein is a drop in a sea of songwriters.