NonPopulus

Last night was my 11th Matthew Good show, and I think it was among the best I've ever seen. My girlfriend, sister, and I were front and center. When Matt crouched to sing Army of Lions and especially Girls in Black, it was a really special experience, because he was right between my girlfriend and I. He also walked into the audience and stood on the section divider to finish off the latter. Load Me Up wasn't on the setlist posted on Instagram, but they played it nestled amongst Hello Time Bomb and Alert Status Red. For the first time after years of standing in the front row, I got a setlist too! The energy was high from Everything is Automatic to the end, and I'm thinking he was making and attempt to raise the energy when they played the three classics in the middle of the set. Los Alamos and Girls in Black were the definite standouts for me. Los Alamos was super atmospheric and sounded spectacular with the third hollowbody guitar being strummed. All in all it was right up there with the LOES show I saw in Edmonton.

Nanaimo setlist: No Liars All You Sons and Daughters Born Losers Army of Lions Cold Water Hello Time Bomb Load Me Up Alert Status Red Kid Down the Well Moment Los Alamos Apparitions Everything is Automatic Weapon ---------- Giant Girls in Black Cloudbusting It was awesome! Highlights for me were Los Alamos and Girls in Black. Pretty much everyone in the first five or so rows stood between Everything is Automatic and the end.

No! Not an idiot at all. Tonight is my first show of the tour in Nanaimo! I'm expecting a rocking opener. Anyone think he might combine the concept of "rocker" with "new album" for the opener tonight?

With all of that brand new material, he has to throw some older singles in to appease the casual masses and we know what those songs are going to be: Hello Timb Bomb, Load Me Up, The Future is X-Rated, Born Losers, Alert Status Red, etc. It's just a necessity. He can't afford to alienate the majority of casual fans. It's alright. I think that looks pretty enjoyable!

Here's the "horns" version of Hornets if you're interested, girl. http://youtu.be/TqAL3IjWxCQ

I think the production on Army of Lions is great and they made great instrumentation choices. I just miss the original arrangement. If they would have recorded the original arrangement with the album production, it wouldn't have been perfect. Cold Water, for me, is better on the album than demo form. Los Alamos, I would say is a draw, in my books. I just wish they wouldn't have pounded the life out of All You Sons and Daughters by transforming it into a standard rock song. The sketchpad tracklisting was: Harridan All You Sons and Daughters Moment Kid Down the Well Tiger By The Tail No Liars Girls in Black Cold Water Cloudbusting Army of Lions Los Alamos Imagine if Hornets and Night Orders were there instead of No Liars. I think that would have been a huge improvement - order and track selection - on an album that's already awesome.

This has been an interesting album to digest. I let it soak in for five days and thought about the demo versions of the songs. I thought about the tracklisting and how I felt the finished product stacked up against its demo counterpart. As the title Chaotic Neutral might suggest, I have trouble pinning down this album's identity. When I heard a majority of the demos, I thought he might be heading more in the direction of Lights of Endangered Species. Matt himself indicated that he felt like Lights of Endangered Species was more complete than Arrows of Desire. However, both of those albums have a clear identity, whereas I feel Chaotic Neutral does not. As mentioned previously, the songs are sort of all over the place. Some of the songs contain traditional song structures, with verses and choruses, where others do not. Eschewing traditional structures worked really well on Lights of Endangered Species, because the arrangements were very lush and the songs meandered carefree in a vast sonic landscape. Each song on that album more or less lived in that same landscape. However, on Chaotic Neutral we have songs that range in genus from "Moment" to "Harridan" to "Tiger by the Tail" to "Army of Lions." As mentioned above, the album is definitely a little all over the place, and although I'm warming up to it, it makes it difficult for me to find a cohesive identity in there. It's more like a collection of songs than an album, if you will. I think using "Night Orders" and "Hornets" on the final album while subbing out some oddities like "No Liars" would have helped. Some production choices I talk about below would have helped too. I accept that "Girls in Black" has a place on this album. It seems very personal. However, it's more of a Vancouver-like rocker than the direction this album seems to be trying to lean in. Now, as far as comparing demos to finished products go, this is a tough one. Am I ever happy he shared these with us. It was really fun and enlightening to follow the development of the album. We wouldn't be able to sit here and state our subjective opinions on all this art if we didn't have access to the demos. When Arrows of Desire came out, I recall people being quite happy with the finished product. We had no demos to compare that album to, so there was no hard feelings concerning missing emotions or "botched" arrangement or production choices. I can't help but think that whoever said that spinning the demos ad nauseam would set the listener-follower up for disappointment is totally correct. We listen to demos over and over again, which Matt probably didn't intend with time-limited previews. He didn't care at all about the mix or clarity of his home office recordings. But while he, Warne, and the production team make decisions about the direction they want to take with songs, we get to use our imagination's versions of the songs and build up ideals in our minds. We remember the small nuances with fondness and when the final product comes out, we're ultimately let down that it doesn't meet our expectations and lacks idiosyncracies we fell in love with. We go back to the originals with that fondness, and consciously recall the possibilities we conjured. With that being said, I think some opportunities were missed on at least a couple of songs. "All You Sons and Daughters" is the first example. Ages ago, I said that I could envision that song as an amazing opener. At that time, I meant of both the album and in a live setting. However, the grandeur has been stripped out of the original demo in translation to the studio. All we have left is a standard rocker. The original Cold Harbor demo felt a lot more complete to me. It had dynamics and instrumentation that the final lacks. The second verse had musical development to go along with the lyrical development in the glockenspiel melody. Not to mention the original had an outro that wasn't just a previous musical idea repeated. The bells also made the song way bigger. Maybe I'm falling victim to what I've described in the paragraph above. A while back, Matt posted a picture of what looked to be a tracklisting for this album and he had "Harridan" opening. The final state of "All You Sons and Daughters" led me to believe "Harridan" would have been a much better opener, so I tried it, and I agree with his original idea. The second slot would have been better for what wound up on the album. "Army of Lions" is another one. Why was it rearranged to be a quick blast and reduce the suspense and tension from the demo? Why wasn't that outro used as a bridge like in the original demo? With that amazing album production, it could have been a monster. Instead, it's just a quick break between two of the softest songs on the record. Using the original bridge progression as a quick outro was a great idea, but the bridge should have remained there too. Like "All You Sons and Daughters," it's just another song that ends abruptly more or less unresolved. I feel like there's a point where an artist has to strive for musical concentration and not oversaturate the listener with the same idea, but rounding out songs with instrumental bridges and outros wouldn't have hurt. I also miss the reverb on the chorus of "Tiger by the Tail," but hey, right? Anyhow, I really enjoy the new album, but I'm trying to relate with some of the people who feel a little challenged by the transition from demo to final form. The production is great and a lot of songs were definitely improved in the studio. The vocals are bang on. One of my favourite moments on the album is when he sings "punched" on "Army of Lions." I can't wait to see what he does with these songs on the tour. I'm hitting three shows and two VIPs, so I'm looking forward to it big time! I'm definitely happy to have some new songs in the catalogue.

Happy Chaotic Neutral Day, everyone! Congratulations to Matt on the release of another great album. I'm celebrating by listening front to back with headphones right now. Hope everyone else is enjoying the day.

Good guesses! ;)

Did anyone win tickets for the secret show tomorrow night?

No Liars is now on Rdio.

I got front row for Nanaimo, just like 2013. I also got first balcony Edmonton, because I'm going with four people. Fifth row in Calgary. Pretty good turn of events, I think. Problem is, I didn't have enough to upgrade to the VIP packages. Does anyone know how long of a period we have purchase the upgrades?

No Liars, Kid Down the Well, and? We'll see!

I like the outro from the 2010 version better. The song doesn't just seem to "stop" on that one. I'm wondering why he decided to change the second verse lyrics and the outro from the original demo from Lights. I really like the song though and I'm glad he resurrected it for this album. I hope Hornets gets a similar treatment someday.

I think that's a cool choice for first single. I've always loved that one since I heard the demo during the Lights of Endangered Species cycle. He had seemingly forgotten about it until I mentioned it in this thread and another member linked him.

The live version of Lights of Endangered Species was amazing. I love how the rhythm guitar really crushed it at the end, where on the album, it might have been a little anemic. I think he was just finding a way to translate the songs live though, and the guitar HAD to carry what they couldn't replicate on tour.

I thought it was upbeat and I liked the doubling on the guitars. I only heard it once though. We'll see how he updates it.

http://www.matthewgood.org/news/2015/3/10/no-liars-demo NO LIARS Caught under a spell you know they’d call you on it every time we meet, yeah the secret’s on again feel you move like you’re meant to, closed caption eyes four walls, a door, making suicide yeah, we’re no liars Pinned under a spell the jaws of life to cut it stare at the windshield a while, let the fire spread try and move like you’re meant to, all by design one city, two fronts, and bunker cyanide yeah, we’re no liars Somewhere fine it’s somewhere you shouldn’t mind Caught under a spell you know they’d call you on it every time we meet, yeah the secret’s on again Sit and read Jailbird, got nothing but time yeah, we’re no liars

That's a nice update on the version that came out prior to Lights of Endangered Species. I'm glad he's resurrecting songs for this new album. One thing I miss about the old demo is the outro. Other than that, it's pretty awesome. In regards to the cover, I would vote for Cloudbusting.

That is awesome news! I always thought that one would make a great opener for some reason. I hope you figure out the guitar part. Have you looked at For and Against for this record yet? Oh, and of course, nobody has mentioned Life In Spite of Itself. If you're looking back, you have so many options!

I feel like the set of demos previewed before Lights of Endangered Species mesh well with a lot of what we're hearing from this new set. Hornets, For and Against, Die Like Kings/A Short Time on Earth, We Are a Place, and All You Sons and Daughters make sense next to these ones. Even some of the older demos, such as The Lone Gunman feel right in this context. Man, there is a lot of potential in those. Refining any of these songs and preparing them for this next collection makes me very excited.

Yeah, he changed Omissions of the Omen. He was using a capo and strumming chords. It was cool.

It was different from either, actually. It was a different tuning and he sang the chorus much differently.

I posted the setlist on Setlist.fm Here it is: Truffle Pigs A Boy and His Machine Gun Born Losers So Long Mrs. Smith Prime Time Deliverance Improv (Inspired by Yo Gabba Gabba) Load Me Up While We Were Hunting Rabbits Metal Airplanes Tripoli Sort of a Protest Song A Silent Army in the Trees Strange Days Symbolistic White Walls Apparitions Alert Status Red Omissions of the Omen True Love Will Find You in the End

I really enjoy these two new demos. They aren't quite as dense as some of the earlier ones, but I think the sparse and slow-developing nature is perfect. I feel like they're very understated. There's a lot of atmosphere and room for development in the studio. Absolutely wonderful, in my humble and non-expert opinion. Thanks for sharing, Matt.