Hospital Music - Matthew Good

Hospital Music

Matthew Good
Universal Records.

SCQ Rating: 93%

Let’s rewind a decade to Canada’s teenage recording boom, when bands like Econoline Crush, I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace, Moist and Matthew Good Band fought for our airwaves. In these pre-downloading days, each of these bands sold platinum records, yet how many songs from this would-be golden age can you honestly claim have survived the test of time? The two most definitive singles that should come to mind are ‘Naveed’ and ‘Apparitions’; the other bands, whose hooks and choruses said all there was to say, haven’t aged half as gracefully. Now consider the turn of the century, when Nickelback, Sam Roberts and Finger Eleven hold the Canadian Content ring; one of these bands having become tantamount to faceless American hick-rock, the other two as good as their next single.

There is no remaining doubt, commercially or artistically, that Matthew Good has surpassed all of his 90s alt-rock contemporaries. And if it wasn’t already obvious that Good is poised to join Robbie Robertson, Neil Young, and the late Jeff Healy as treasured Canadian songwriters, Hospital Music assures it. Without the assistance of Universal Records, who offered little to no promotional efforts to Good’s last LP in their contract – ‘Born Losers’, one of the most heavily spun songs on Canadian rock radio last year, was never afforded a music video – Good still rivaled all the current competition. Two sold-out tours, a #1 selling debut week on I-Tunes for ‘Born Losers’, and an obsessive fanbase, and all for a record which deals exclusively with addiction, loss, collapse and (maybe a bit of) redemption.

After the ho-hum White Light Rock and Roll Review, which tread modern rock waters as well as some of those aforementioned Canadian bands, Hospital Music opens with ‘Champions of Nothing’, a nightmarish ten-minute dirge that leaves listeners with the knowledge that Good’s ambition is entirely reinvigorated. Despite the goosebumps, this track is a risky move; the kind of desperate and fatalistic opener that first-time listeners will either fall in love with or quickly turn off. Slipping comfortably into ‘A Single Explosion’, Good’s acoustic relaxes as he sings an anti-love song about pills and overdosing that somehow retains all romance when it bursts into a piano-assisted release that seems to give closure to both songs. A striking couplet, lending its weight to the following tracks until it’s snowballing; each song feeding melancholy into the next, creating a mood piece that the Cure would be proud of.

Although Hospital Music is a turning point for Good, creatively and critically, it can be compared to Avalanche in terms of scope and aesthetic. Where Avalanche focused primarily on the plight of humanity and the politics of consumerism, Hospital Music finds the same complex issues but inherently, its songs somehow decoding the condition that nearly ended Good’s life in the fall of 2006. Aesthetically, this latest effort is linked as well, but whereas Avalanche filled its lush sound with live orchestra and subtle electronic soundscapes, Hospital Music is predominantly pillowed by keyboards, synths and archaic samples – grainy vocal loops, vinyl fuzz and ambient sounds – that paint a more isolating aural picture. When all the chips are down, Hospital Music is the better album because of its personal nature; our interest in Matthew Good – the confrontational artist, the defiant humanitarian – is what has earned him such a loving following. It’s also the dividing line between Good and his peers.