Matt Addison and company shine on new Mythical Motors album
Hard work alone will not get you there without some talent and all the talent in the world won’t do you much good without some hard work. Mythical Motors is well on their way to cornering the market on both.
The conglomeration of talented performers headed by Matt Addison found their voice early on and they’ve worked tirelessly to explore and perfect that sound ever since. The Life Stage marks their tenth album, their longest to date, and raises the bar again for a band that perpetually raises the bar.
It’s been just a little less than six months since the band released their last album, Running the Shine, an excellent and well produced bit of music. In the more or less 180 days since then, they’ve written, recorded and mastered a collection of twenty-six new tracks ringing at the 55-minute mark.
That might not make the impression on you that it does on me so consider that I am in touch with bands here in town (bands I’d really like to write about) who have spent two or three times as much time recording an EP and still aren’t done.
It would be an impressive feat regardless of the quality of the music, but the quality of the music is superb, the same high level of writing and performing Mythical Motors has built their reputation on.
They have mastered that alt rock/pop vibe from the era when “alt” was a new word to describe the exciting sound coming from college towns in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, an era when every week saw the release of a handful of gems from bands you were only just starting to hear about.
At the center of it all is Mister Addison, who I cannot help but liken to Tom Hulce’s representation of Mozart in the 1985 film Amadeus, feverishly working to the point of exhaustion.
In a powdered wig.
Well, maybe not a powdered wig, but I like to picture it that way.
The point is that here is an artist whose head is so full of music that I don’t think he can afford to stop writing, ever, and having partnered up with a group of guys whose technical skills and feel for the tunes matches his own, Mythical Motors is the perfect vehicle for realizing that vision.
In fact, Addison takes a page from Prince’s book in as much as he plays every instrument on twenty-three of the twenty-six songs. Frankly, I’m a little awestruck by what he and his guys have put together here.
As I said at the start, here is a group that found their voice early on and being in the position to listen to them perfect that voice over the last several years, to be a witness to the growth and refinement of the band, is a marvelous thing.
The album has great appeal for people of my generation (provided you didn’t live under a rock in ’94) but as retro/vintage as it may be for us, there’s a whole new generation (or two) that didn’t grow up hearing music like this and for them it will be an all new experience and one I think will speak to many.
It isn’t overblown concept music, nor is it electronic bubblegum noise, it’s honest, guitar driven power pop with a twist, and just raw enough around the edges to keep it real.
The Life Stage is Mythical Motors latest release, their biggest and most ambitious to date, and easily one of their best.