Matt Keating
Quixotic
Kealon Records
by Al Kaufman
Matt Keating is what would happen if Crowded House’s Finn brothers wrote a bunch of songs and gave them to Lou Reed to sing. Quixotic is a bunch of nicely polished, somewhat dark pop songs delivered in a slighly flat vocal (although one that is often more melodious than Reed’s). The end result is some beautiful music. Keating must know it’s good, because in this age of itunes and downloading singles, Keating’s Quixotic (his sixth release) is a double disc release. It doesn’t need to be. If Keating pared this 23-song release down to the best 12, it would make a lot of year end best-of lists. As it is now, there are a lot of mid-tempo rockers that are nice enough, but feel like filler after a while. Luckily, there are enough pop nuggets, like the Springsteen-lite "Do You Want (To Not Be Lonely with Me)," the political "Sorry Son," the gritty and bluesy "Skin and Bone," and the turbo-charged "Mystified," to make both discs worthy of repeated listenings. Keating clearly demonstrates that when it comes to matters of the heart he, like the rest of us, is merely fighting wondmills. But when it comes to crafting a song, he’s more of a Zorro than a Don Quixote.
Matt Keating plays WonderRoot Community Arts Center with Paul Melancon and Chris Masterson (of Son Volt) on Friday, September 12. 8 pm.
