AMG Review of Matchbook Romance/Motion City Soundtrack

Johnny Loftus
All Music Guide

This split features two of Epitaph's brightest young things, Matchbook Romance and Motion City Soundtrack. Both contribute new songs as well as acoustic/otherwise messed-with versions of older tracks. Matchbook's "In Transit (Over You)" is an atmospheric Radiohead-ish number that eventually trades its acoustic meander for a full-on rock howl. It's a pretty nice song, but Andrew Jordan wins the award for vocal over-emoting. The seat-of-the-pants production ("Recorded and mixed...in 45 minutes," according to the liner notes) works well on "Playing for Keeps," as a band like Matchbook Romance usually favors a lush, overdone studio sound. Motion City Soundtrack performs the new "When 'You're' Around" acoustically here, but it will likely appear on their upcoming full-length in a rockier version. The version of "Sunday Warning" appearing here also benefits from its rough mix. All in all, not a bad little release for fans of these groups; neophytes will be teased for the upcoming releases.