matt pond PA's Autumnal Sound

I've been lucky enough to get in on the ground floor with a handful of bands and listen to their sound evolve as their exposure and popularity grew.  I don't think I made it in on exactly the ground floor with matt pond PA, but I think I managed to get in toward the bottom of the proverbial building.  When I started listening to them, they were just getting past the stage where they had to crash on the floor of my friend's apartment every time they came to town for a show.  From the beginning of my time listening to matt pond PA's music, there generally seems to be an undercurrent of loss, change, and regret mixed with small glimmers and the occasional flourish of hope and beauty.  It isn't really consistently sad music or happy music...to try to put some more of a concrete description to it, I'd say that matt pond PA plays music that embraces the cold and lonely of life in order to come out the other side better for it.  How's that for concrete?

I often like to compare music to seasons and Matt Pond and company seem to be comfortably at home in the fall.  The feeling of transition and a bright future off in the distance that is encapsulated by the fall is somehow also held firmly in the songs Matt Pond writes.  The band is responsible for one of my top 5 favorite albums of all time, "Emblems" (my friend Murph says you must be a bad person if you don't like "Emblems").  There is a magical quality to that album that every time I put it on, I can listen from front to back without interruption and without any desire to skip ahead.  I feel like after "Emblems," Matt Pond was consciously trying to get away from that Autumnal feel that I think fits so well.  While good albums, I felt like "Several Arrows Later" and "Last Light" were missing something.  The undercurrent was too far down.  Then, for free through his website, Matt Pond released "Thefreeep" (The Free EP) at a time when it seemed like his band was dissolving around him.  To me, "Thefreep" was (to use too extreme a word) an exorcism of sorts.  I don't think there was exactly any evil to get rid of, but the EP seems like a stream of consciousness meant to expunge the fog and achieve some kind of clarity.

The result of this clarity I just made up is "The Dark Leaves," and album released in the spring, but absolutely right at home around the fallen leaves and warm fires of the fall.  "Remains" is a song that I think showcases what I view to be an energized an centered Matt Pond at his best.

...If you remain in me
I will remain in you
And if you stay with me
I will stay with you...

matt pond PA - Remains