'You Can Run, But We'll Find You.' – 4:08.The track 'Monsters' was featured as the lead single from Voices, going on to be featured in video games such as Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Madden NFL 07 and Arena Football: Road to Glory. Hence 'there are voices in the walls.' Some of the lyrics to the hidden track can also be found in typos in the lyrics of the other songs. This panel can be aligned with parts of the album's artwork to reveal secret messages. Inside the album's packaging is a small plastic panel, with alternating black and transparent strips. The cover of the album was designed by Shawn Harris from pop punk band The Matches. The band chose to tune the all their guitars down half a step to help with the change. If you’re bored of it and want something a little different, I’d advise you to stay well clear….Vocalist Andrew Jordan adopts a much different vocal style for this record than their previous, bringing the band closer to the second-wave emo sound. If you like the trendier side of the post-hardcore genre, Matchbook Romance will be your cup of tea. Still, I’ll be sure to check them out live next time they come over to see if the tracks work better without the spit and polish. ‘Stories and Alibis’ contains some great moments, but not enough for my liking.

But it’s all beginning to grate on me now, and for all the pretenders bands really have to step up to the ballpark and produce the goods if they are to make an impact. When I first heard the EP I thought Matchbook Romance could be one of my new favourite bands, especially because I do like their style of music. There are highlights as ‘The Greatest Fall Of All Time’ is a stormer, even if it did feature on the EP, and ‘My Eyes Burn’ rages and rattles with some sweet melodies and harmonies, but both tracks are ‘safe’ – I’m sure another record will drop through my doormat next week and will contain something exactly the same. There is a cohesion and a sense that MR have a gameplan and they stick reasonably well to it, but a lack of adventure costs them. The songs really are good but not great – and this sums up the album as a whole. ‘Playing For Keeps’ could be Senses Fail or Silverstein really, while ‘Promise’ slows the pace down but does little to really stand out in a flooded genre. Unfortunately the good parts this song contains aren’t found enough elsewhere, which is disappointing because MR can clearly play and write, even if they borrow from everyone else. ‘Your Stories, My Alibis’ is a keeper, a really strong opening song (discounting the intro) that has a driving melody that makes an instant impression, like all good openers should. The production is slicker, but the songs themselves don’t sound much better – maybe six months wasn’t long enough between releases? LITTLE SISTER MATCHBOOK ROMANCE, MY EYES BURN I JD NATASHA. But compare this record to the EP and there isn’t much sign of progress. But in hindsight, Cowell admitted that bending his tough standards for the three singers. There’s token shouting, breakdowns, screamy/melodic parts and all the good stuff that the likes of TBS and Thursday have paved the way for other bands to take some success. Sure it’s unoriginal, has borrowed riffs a-plenty and Taking Back Sunday released the same record last year (ooh, the callousness!), but by-and-large the songs are catchy and do the job you’d expect them to do.

In between, Stories And Alibis sold over 200,000 copies and the band absolutely lived on the road in support of it. But still, times (and bands) change and after an EP earlier this year, which was quite good I hasten to add, the band are back with ‘Stories and Alibis’, their first full-lengther.Īnd despite the negative opion I’ve already portrayed, it’s not that bad. The album's list of successes now speaks for itself: following its late 2003 release came the video for 'My Eyes Burn,' a run on the cover of scene bible Alternative Press and a slot headlining the first-ever Epitaph Tour. Matchbook Romance signed to Epitaph after Mr Brett heard their MP3s on a Canadian webzine, funnily enough when they were under a different name and weren’t quite as angular in their riffery.

Yet another day, yet another “emotional” band…yadda yadda yadda. I could start this review off in exactly the same way that any other post-hardcore record has made me witter on about unoriginality and all that.

Matchbook romance my eyes burn