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Mat Kearney [Young Love]
Posted August 05, 2011
By KevinDavis_NRT, Staff Reviewer


Following the success of his major label debut, Nothing Left To Lose, Mat Kearney returned with an evolved sound and an open-hearted album of self-discovery, City of Black & White which is a chronicle of the people he met and missed during that journey. Now, Mat returns with his fourth studio album Young Love, revisiting the heavy grooves, spoken word, and sing-able choruses fans came to love from sophomore-release, Nothing Left To Lose. After becoming a licensed cab driver in hometown, Nashville, Tennessee, Kearney found lyrical inspiration for Young Love through the conversations he had with passengers. "Down" will be the first single released to Christian CHR/AC radio, while "Hey Mama" can currently be heard on mainstream rock radio. I would describe Mat's style as a great mix of Jack Johnson, The Fray, Matthew West and Brandon Heath, which are among my favorite artists. The album lacks strong spiritual messages and reminds me more of a Jack Johnson album relative to the number of songs about relationships such as "Hey Mama," “Count On Me” and "Learning To Love Again" which are all great songs and remind me of “All I Have,” "Here We Go" and “Annie” from City of Black & White.

Super-catchy opening track "Hey Mama" describes the first meeting between Kearney and his new wife at the Anthropologie store in Tennessee that she was working at. After courting her for a few months, he stole her heart, and now it's all in the tune. About the song he says, "The album really began with 'Hey Mama'. After clapping into my laptop and programming this beat, I was dancing around the room actually freestyling words. This wasn't me sitting around with some friends and an acoustic guitar. It was this visceral writing experience. I tried to find a way to write stories to these beats." “Ships In The Night” is one of my favorite songs of the year and features Mat’s signature sound and a hooky chorus. "Down" is the “Closer To Love”-style spiritually-themed song of this album. I love the lyrics “can you hear when we call, there where we fall, standing our backs against the wall, Top of our lungs, hallelujah, where pain and love bleed into one, baby when all you see is darkness, coming down now, we all need forgiveness, coming round now.”
 
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Young Love is a great listen and includes several memorable songs including "Hey Mama," “Ships In The Night,” “Sooner Or Later,” "Down" and the closing song "Rochester." If you like the musical styles of Brandon Heath and Matthew West, you'll like the musical style of this album, but lyrically it is much more like The Fray and Jack Johnson.

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