There\u2019s a maturity which comes from being in the music business for more than a decade, and Matt Pond can attest to the grittiness needed to survive in its rough and tumble world. For 13 years the leader and soul behind Matt Pond PA has endured by writing lasting songs full of heart and brio, all containing the unmistakable sound Pond brings to the table.<\/p>\n
But the tale of the tape on Pond is while he writes great songs (\u201cHalloween\u201d is one of the top 20 songs written in the last decade), he doesn\u2019t write great albums. Through his career Pond has created massive musical moments and passive misfires, with 2010\u2032s The Dark Leaves an example of how tight and unfocused the band can sometimes be. Struggling with the biz, Pond almost left it following Dark Leaves. Let\u2019s be happy he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
With Spring Fools, a five-song EP of simple but elegant songs, Pond has proven he\u2019s not done with his career \u2013 not by a long shot. In the Fools liner notes Pond credits Andrew Kenny (American Analog Set) for returning his passion to his craft, and this re-energized feel is obvious from the opening track \u201cLove To Get Used,\u201d as pop and polished as three-minute songs come. Sharing singing duties with Austin singer Ariel Abshire, Pond rollicks through the jangly guitar track at a giddy pace while the song races to a satisfying end.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuman Beings\u201d captures Pond at his essence, reminiscent of the elite song writing from his best album Several Arrows Later (2005), while the piano-led \u201cLovers Always Win\u201d is whimsical and sunny, with Abshire returning to lend her distinctive voice. The EP-ending \u201cSugar Bush\u201d boasts an Americana guitar twang amid lively strings, holding the spirit of a hot July day yielding to a cool, breezy night. It\u2019s a great summer song.<\/p>\n
Pond is no stranger to EPs \u2014 with Spring Fools he now has eight of them \u2014 and he might have had plans to forge ahead with this one and churn out a full-length album. But this meal-sized EP is an example of a man who knows bold statements can come in smaller packages, and knows how best to deliver them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a maturity which comes from being in the music business for more than a decade, and Matt Pond can attest to the grittiness needed to survive in its rough and tumble world. For 13 years the leader and soul behind Matt Pond PA has endured by writing lasting songs full of heart and brio, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[158,488],"class_list":["post-1532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-matt-pond-pa","tag-spring-fools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1534,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions\/1534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}