Review Summary: Simple, quiet, emotional. Jonah Matranga provides a new taste of emotional music with beautiful poetry.
‘A Onelinedrawing is when you start drawing and don't pick up the pencil 'til you're done.’ This simply means to the front man of Onelinedrawing, Jonah Matranga, that you keep writing music and keep at what you’re doing and you don’t stop until you are finished. Jonah keeps true to this promise whenever he breaks off from one project, he begins writing as a solo artist or for another band, and Onelinedrawing is always a band he can fall back on. He is the one man solely behind Onelinedrawing and does a magnificent job.
When recording this album, it was never recorded all at one studio, in fact, it was recorded in at least four different houses and the name of this CD comes from these experiences. The name
Visitor implies what he was doing as he was writing the songs to this CD.
The Excellent (5) – “Yr Letter” is a song that really shines, it is such a great emotional song. It is about breaking up with one that you love and you are on the receiving end of the letter. “I read yr letter, I read it five times now, but I still don’t get it, all this sh
it about memories and you and me and the way it used to be” The lyrics really simply fantastic and it is backed up with an acoustic guitar. The next standout track is, “Smile” which is, a song with a digital beats that sound happy and fun while maintaining Jonah’s extreme passion and incredible song writing. This is probably the catchiest song on the album and it really does make you put a smile on your face. During one concert he said, “A lot of people write happy songs about being sad, but not many have made a happy song about being happy…I don’t know if I succeeded here, but I sure did try.” Do not fret Jonah you have succeeded. Another catchy song is, “Bitte Ein Kuss,” which I believe means, a kiss asks (it is German I believe). Then the lyrics finish out with “her hips are like seashells, and I can hear the ocean when I listen” which is simply implying oral sex. At a show once, he said a little girl wanted to hear this song, but the kid probably had no idea that the song was about what it is really about, Thank God.
The Good (4) – “Um…” and “Softbelly” round out the better half of the album. Once again, with phenomenal songwriting and simple guitar/piano work, Jonah creates a mood like no other. “Softbelly” continues to talk about the difference between compassion and compulsion with sex and your intimate life. Throughout the album, very interesting lyrics as you can see. It has a very nice piano backing up the sound of the song, with an electronic guitar with a very relaxing chorus. It is a great song to do homework to or to relax while hanging around the house. “Um…” is the initial album track, with quite bad recording, it gives you a nice sense how he did not record this record in the studio and he really did record at peoples’ houses. Jonah has great vocals in this song that shine bright to debut the album.
The Rest (less than 4) – The rest of the album is decent, nothing spectacular; all of the songs bring their certain aspects to the album. Once again, Jonah’s ability to write great lyrics is what really matters in his project Onelinedrawing, he wants to get out his point and he does it with beautiful poetry. “Why are We Fighting?” is a song about relationships. It dwells upon how no one should really fight in a relationship. The repercussions are if you wind up breaking up over a fight, you wasted a good portion of your life. Plan and simple, the worst song on the album (not including “Visitor” since it is not a full-length song) is probably the “Candle Song” only because the song as a whole is just weak and his voice is not at his peak, even though it has a fingerpicked guitar part throughout the song.
For the record, Onelinedrawing is not Dashboard Confessional, nor Bright Eyes. Onelinedrawing is its own breed of acoustical song writing. As you may or may not know, Jonah’s last real band was Gratitude, in which he was the lead singer. He continues to awe and inspire his small fan base with his huge heart and lyrics. This album, ‘Visitor,’ really defines Jonah and is a perfect example of a man with a mission to spread his music to others and inspire others. You can visit his website at www.jonahmatranga.com or simply find his projects all over the web and on Myspace www.myspace.com/jonahmatranga. I recommend this CD to anyone who enjoys calm, peaceful music with quality vocals and intimate lyrics.
