Music Review: Matthew Mayfield, Now You’re Free
Stars: 1.5
Now You’re Free would make a fitting soundtrack to a sappy teeny bopper romance flick. The two would be perfectly paired in their sentimentality, their conventionality and their predictability. Matthew Mayfield’s baritone would soar over some culminating kiss scene as the would audience coo, “Aww, what a nice, happy ending.” If this is what you seek in an album, Now You’re Free fits the bill, but if you prefer something substantial and original, you may find yourself wanting.
With track names like “Come Back Home,” “Grow Old With You”
and “Tonight,” what’s to be expected? The song titles and album art hinted that the contents within would be short of mind-blowing, and while it is unwise to judge a book by its cover, the innate assumption became manifest as Now You’re Free proved to be nothing more than ordinary.
Now You’re Free’s instrumentation is dominated by acoustic guitar. Mayfied plays with a backing band that includes bass, drums, piano, and even cello, though they all fade into a wash of white behind Mayfield’s husky vocals, those you might expect of a pop artist determined to be taken seriously as a rock artist.
Each track is woefully foreseeable, indistinguishable from any Nickel Back or 3 Doors Down song to grace the airwaves of G105. There is nothing glaringly wrong with Matthew Mayfield’s work, it’s just that we have heard these songs before, and in that they are all too forgettable.
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