This came out in 2001 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
I have never met Matthew Good, but he seems like a malcontent. This is admirable in general, and especially in rock stars — the last thing we need is to watch another angry young rocker go all mushy and start singing about how much he misses his baby on the road.
You’ll find none of that sort of audio pablum on The Audio of Being, the fourth full-length from the Matthew Good Band. What you will find is another solid hour of Good’s ambitious and uncompromising alt-rock, with guitars that keep grinding and churning, propulsive drums that maintain a sense of momentum and urgency, tremulous, angst-filled vocals midway between Gordon Downie and Michael Stipe, and a dozen solid tracks that temper the brooding indignation of Good’s cynical lyrics with outbursts of blistering Marshall-stack catharsis. It’s a cood thing. Even to malcontents like me.
