WARNING (Spoiler Alert!): The follow review contains spoilers about the Matthew Ebel album Goodbye Planet Earth. If you do not want to wish to read them, click here to be returned to the main page at abiteofsanity.com.
=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=
Matthew Ebel’s latest full-length solo album, Goodbye Planet Earth, sees the (currently) Nashville-based bird aficionado leaving the bartenders and baristas of Beer & Coffee behind and making a radical left turn towards an amusing galactic adventure set to music.
Calling Goodbye Planet Earth a “concept album” barely does it justice. Ebel has crafted a full 17-course piano rock opera, with Tommy as a soup, Dark Side of the Moon as an appetizer, and a double helping of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the main course, topped off by a dollop of Ebel’s own vision and quality piano play.
My pre-order package consisted of the CD (autographed on the full-color cover), several stickers, two buttons, and an autographed 8×10 publicity photo. The shiny black CD itself, enclosed in a more environmentally-friendly cardboard CD case versus a plastic jewel case, was of very high quality, with ridges across the label side meant to recreate the feeling of a full-sized vinyl record. The quality of the packaging of the CD itself would serve well as an example to others of what quality can be put out on an independent musician’s budget.
The prerequisite of any good rock opera is a feeling of enclosure, a unity in theme throughout the entire implementation. Ebel accomplishes this subtlety with a single-note staccato that evolves out of the opening explosion on “Better Off Dead” before dropping this line just before the two minute mark:
You just don’t panic, so they said, in all the good books that I have read.
This lyric, combined with the title of the album, gives us the first clue that there is a lot more to the album than what’s being heard on the surface, as it is practically begging the listener to make the connection right out of the gate. The reference here is an obvious one to “The Guide” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which carries the embossed motto of “Don’t Panic” proudly on its cover.
“Better Off Dead” slides effortless into “I Just Want To Fall In Love”, with a laid back beat accented smartly by a well-placed synthesized pipe organ over pianos and drums. Inside Ebel makes two nods back two of the popular songs from Beer & Coffee: “Trees” and “Drive Away“.
Here Ebel reads a beautiful poem from William Wordsworth balance shifted for effect over a piano track. Say what you want about the poem being read, but Ebel didn’t have too far to go to rise above the level of Vogon poetry.
This song serves as a transition riff between the poetry of “Woodsworth” and the title track of the album, with another clue to the album’s theme dropped into the end. Rather than being total nonsense, the new number — “B000A283AW” is actually the Amazon SKU for the widescreen version of the movie “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“.
The title track to the album picks up a rocking piano beat that betrays a small but perhaps unrealized Jerry Lee Lewis influence. You can almost imagine Ebel playing this live, standing up, pounding the keys of the piano for all he can get out of them while jamming out biting social commentary funny enough to sing along with. At least he had the courtesy to say thanks for all the fish on the way out.
If you’re like my wife and start to groan a little at the sound of Beer & Coffee’s “Trees” on your child’s iPod, get ready to have this tune added to that playlist. Prodo-1 makes his album debut in a fun little number reminding us how robots are very much part of our daily lives. Prodo-1 is not nearly as depressed as Marvin the Paranoid Android, but after the whole emo canon bit, it’s easy to forgive Ebel for instead encouraging his robot to be much more upbeat.
A moment of silence, if you will, for “Latte Days & Porter Nights“, now no longer the longest song he’s ever sung.
Clocking in epically at over 13 minutes, “A Cautionary Tail” is the requisite tribute to mice, the smartest creatures on Earth. I’m sure there’s an additional cultural reference here I’m missing at first sight (and will promptly face-palm myself later for), but I have interpreted the song as telling a story of the law of unintended consequences. A hallucination-inducing middle section that feels like part ELO, part Pink Floyd transitions to the last half of the story with a key-transposed nod to the song “Every Color” found later in the album.
Sally’s back and better than ever. It’s easy to think of this as simply a sequel to “Sally Went Down“. However, this is one instance where a sequel comes in equal to or even slightly better than the original with its Lou Reed-inspired synth riffs and Ebel’s bluesy growls coming through unmasked.
Ebel channels his inner Bobby McFerrin with a reggae-twinged a cappella number. A pre-production version of this song was released as his the album’s first “podsafe single”, so you may have heard this one on several podcasts already (including, ahem, mine). I wish this is what came out of my brain after a few too many drinks on Block Island.
Grab your leg warmers! Er, wait, maybe not… The hard drum-driven “Join The Conversation” instantly recalled memories of “Flashdance” with me, proving either that negotiations to get Irene Cara to sing on this song fell through at the last minute, or that I need much more therapy than anyone originally thought of. A nice mix of clips contributed by several podcasters provides a nice transition in the middle of the song.
Originally commissioned as a company launch song for a company called “crayon“, “Every Color” gets a complete remix and production makeover for inclusion on Goodbye Planet Earth, including signature Ebel self-harmonics in the chorus.
Synthesized harmonies open up this haunting tale of a relationship disintegrated into neglect. The double meaning of “She Will Set You Free” will make you stop and think about your own relationships and realize sometimes the thing you need the most is right in front of you. The song abruptly drops the synth harmonies, leaving Ebel’s unmasked voice for the climax lyric.
This song may be the first (and, for my brain’s sake, hopefully only) reference in musical history to “tentacle porn”, with an echoed harmony that makes you want to sing along while you simultaneously cringe and laugh at the hilarious lyric.
The final song on the album is easily my favorite. “I Will Wait For You” starts and ends with a revisit to the staccato from “Better Off Dead”. In the middle it borrows liberally from the harmony and soul-piercing power that made “I Know You’re There” such a tear-jerker for many Ebel fans. The tympani and penny-whistle play make this a song that, while standing very well on its own, would serve well as a television or movie love theme.
The Master Brush Stroke
The curious part to me was the end of “I Will Wait For You” — a full 19 seconds of dead air closes out the CD. For someone such as Ebel who pays so much attention to detail on his albums, this gap is very unusual at first. It wasn’t until my third time through the album that it hit me — Ebel has intentionally created his own play off the classic “Dark Side of the Rainbow” music-movie mashup. If you start the CD at the point where the Earth blows up in movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (seconds before or right at the start of Chapter 5 on the DVD, depending on your player), the entirety of Goodbye Planet Earth plays right along with it, as if it were an alternate audio track on the movie.
Absolutely brilliant.
Final Thoughts
Ebel has accomplished a rarity in this age of the resurgent digital single and throw-away music downloads. Unlike some artists that refuse to sell singles under a false guise of the “album experience”, he has created a work which encourages its consumption as a complete whole, while the individual songs themselves stand well on their own. Rather than being just filler, the instrumental numbers serve to move the story along and keep the album in time for the intentionally planned music-movie mashup.
If I were to point out anything negative about Goodbye Planet Earth, I would have to say that the synth play at times was a bit overlayered and seemed to drown out Ebel’s vocals and piano playing in a few spots, although I understand the intent of the album was to slide away from the simpler feel that enveloped Beer & Coffee. I also missed the “behind the scenes” extras that were included on the Beer & Coffee CD, but with 71 minutes of music on Goodbye Planet Earth, this is forgivable as it would have been very hard to include any extras on the disc without overfilling the CD beyond its maximum capacity.
Whereas Beer & Coffee was an album, Goodbye Planet Earth is a production, and it shows in nearly every track. It’s easy to tell that Ebel genuinely had fun writing, recording and producing this album. His musical range and piano style sweeps from one side of the room to the other effortlessly. When an artist actually enjoys the process of creation, it will come through in the final product, just as it has here.
Final Rating: 9 out of a possible 10.
Goodbye Planet Earth is available on CD directly from Matthew Ebel’s website (via CD Baby) or as a digital download from iTunes or MySpace Music.