"Sidewalks"
Matt & Kim
3.5 stars
Matt and Kim's third album, "Sidewalks," retains the band's signature, perpetually caffeinated enthusiasm — and the heavy stylistic limitations that come with it. All the songs essentially share the same poppy, adolescent sound. At this point, it's tiresome and overdone.
Matt and Kim's work essentially revolves around a single, simplistic life philosophy: Live life to the fullest and don't care what others have to say. The album opens with "Block After Block," where lines like, "While the lights are out/Eyes closed and shouting right now," perpetuate this liberated attitude. It's got a simplistic beat and the frantic chorus is sung into one jumbled, continuous vocal line.
The single "Cameras" contains another great example of Matt and Kim's perennial themes. In an age of media obsessed with documenting everything, Matt sings, "No time for cameras/we'll use our eyes instead," suggesting that maybe it's time to put the cameras down and live a life unhindered.
The most successful songs on the record are the ones featuring the more prominent and memorable keyboard parts. Songs like "AM/FM Sound" and "Red Paint" stick out because they open with particularly effervescent lines. The melodies on these songs, animated and vivacious, do well to show off Matt and Kim's dynamic personalities. Add in lyrics like, "I'll take what's in front/and leave this mess behind" or "Let's make life so big/make sure can't be missed" and you get the same live-life-to-the-fullest ideal.
"Sidewalks" features other decent tunes, such as the slower "Where You're Coming From" and "Northeast." In context, they're probably better than they'd seem objectively, serving as a nice reprieve from the album's over-the-top bubbliness.
