MATT GRIFFIN AND SOME FELLOW TRAVELLERS: Forty Minutes Off Your Trip

Matt Griffin and some Fellow Travellers

Forty Minutes Off Your Trip

© 1998 Matt Griffin (634479002137)

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Driving folk rock, alt rock, stripped down and direct and fragrant with Americana roots.

tracks

1 Fell In Love
2 Give You My Heart
3 Dead Time
4 Little Mohee
5 At Sea With Love
6 Of Winners
7 Statement of Intention
8 Reach Out
9 Sleeping in Church
10 Wreck of the Old '97
11 Man at the Controls
12 This is Home
13 What's Become?
14 Conny's Room
15 The Weather

notes

Matt Griffin is a singer-songwriter based in Somerville, MA. His songs are deceptively simple; subtle, but simultaneously straightforward and emotionally clear. Long a fan of both rock and folk music, he has brilliantly blended both styles on his debut solo CD, Forty Minutes Off Your Trip.

From the straight - ahead acoustic rock of Fell in Love, through to the gentle fingerstyle denouement of The Weather, this CD is truly a forty minute journey through the mind and heart of a unique songwriter and performer. The journey takes you through the traditional songs Little Mohee and Wreck of the Old 97, which Matt got from his Grandfather Murble Matthews' singing, through politically charged numbers like This is Home and Conny's Room, through pop charmers like Give You My Heart (which is not a love song, by the way, at least not in the traditional sense), and At Sea With Love, with many stops in between. Every song is different, yet it's all of a piece.

The band for the record is basically a three piece, with Matt on guitar and vocal, Malcolm Travis (ex-Sugar, ex-Zulus, ex-Human Sexual Response) playing drums and Rich Cortese, who played with Malcolm for many years in the Zulus. There are guest appearances by Billy Gee (ex-Marvin GayeÕs touring band), Lyn Doiron (ex-the Willard Grant Conspiracy), Kris Delmhorst, Jim Bouchard (brother of Albert and Joe), and fine backup vocal work by Malcolm's wife Susan.

reviews

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  • This album is a lot better than the Mars Volta.
    author: Jeff Farr

    This album is very heartfelt. Great singing and songwriting. I liked it better than the Mars Volta album, the reunion of Jane's Addiction, the Celene Dion show in Las Vegas and the tribute to Robert DeNiro on television combined. It is great to see that a graduate of P.S. Bingo is still alive and kicking.

  • Griffin writes the thinking mans's amalgam of folk-infused rock.
    author: kml

    Matt Griffin's strength is that he writes the thinking mans's amalgam of folk-infused rock... or is it rock-infused folk?... that eschews an intellectual preciousness for the kind of visceral force that gets into your hips and compels you to move to its primal rhythms. Forty Minutes Off Your Trip is full of seemingly simple songs that are deceptively complex, about a surprisingly broad range of topics, all coming from a talented musician with a clear and true eye, and an honest heart. From the mysterious (What's Become), to the intensely personal (Give You My Heart; Of Winners), to the political (This is Home), to the uniquely observant (Sleeping in Church; Man at the Crossroads), to the obligatory but atypical love songs (Fell in Love, At Sea with Love), the writing is consistently strong and refreshingly poetic. Even the songs that seem intimately personal to this writer have a universal bent, passing my litmus test for compelling music. Griffin's warm and open voice is adaptable to the myriad styles he adopts, and he makes unerring choices in his accompanying musicians, particularly Susan Barnaby Travis on harmony vocals. One finds the memorable, sometimes haunting melodies, along with some of the surprising counterpoint harmonies, rattling around the back of your head at random moments for days after a listening. This is a fine recording worthy of space on the shelf of those uninterested in same old/same old.

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