Customer Reviews

Gratitude

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

OK, let's get one thing out of the way first: I hate the emo explosion going on right now. I downright loathe it. There's a handful of really good bands coming out of the woodwork, getting success at the same time, and unfortunately, getting lumped in with that movement. Gratitude are one of those bands. True, frontman Jonah Matranga (who should be best known for his work in Far) could be considered the father of emo, not only as the frontman for the short lived New End Original, but as the brain behind the ultra-sensitive Onelinedrawing. But with this, his new group, he steers in a new direction, more towards a universally appealing pop-rock style, sounding more like U2 than Dashboard Confessional. I get the same feeling listening to Gratitude's debut as I did when I first got Far's "Water & Solutions" album, and although it doesn't really sound like it, it has the same passion and the same quality. Sure, songs like "Sadie" and "The Greatest Wonder" are classic Jonah, but "All In A Row" and the first single, "Drive Away," are more indicative of the new style and the overall tone the band is going for. Personally, I could never get into Jonah's post-Far projects (just a matter of taste I guess), but as far as I'm concerned, this is among his best work. I really don't understand how anyone could not like this album. If you like all varieties of music, Gratitude will appeal to you. There are too few bands out there making no frills, no strings attached, straight-up good rock music, which is why you should give this band a chance.

this is a great album.

if you're a fan of jonah, you're sure to like it(as long as you weren't out to hate it from the start.)

also, if you do hate it, and run out of things bad to say about it, try to insult the band members clothing.

People are jumping to conclusions before they listen to the music and calling Gratitude emo. Sure, Onelinedrawing may have been emo but this certainly isn't. It's simply great pop rock. There's no excessive melodramatics that you would hear in emo or screaming to try and make yourself seem hardcore, it's just great songs. Drive Away has some of the best hooks I've heard in awhile, The greatest wonder reminds me of U2 (in a good way), and Someone to Love knocks me out every time and the ending hook is priceless. Again, let me repeat this is aint emo, if you want that garbage listen to Hawthorne Heights or Taking Back Sunday. No tissues needed.

Apparently it's already happened. The bashing has begun. I guess it was inevitable being that so many people are sick of regurgitated emo bands. And that's fine, great! It's not for you. Generic Generic Generic. I'd really like to know what you listen to so I could pick it apart and deconstruct it 'til i convince anyone who reads this NOT to buy your favorite bands cd. But I won't, thanks for your useless input though!

Now I've followed jonahs (the lead singers) band record for quite some time(far, NEO, onelinedrawing). This is his way of spreading simple, poppy, catchy, slightly creative songs to the masses. And all of a sudden there is something wrong with that with people. The band is doing what they were supposed to do, infest radio, TV, and your head (repeating over and over again).

Its not a complicated record, and that's fine! We need something simple sometimes. Something inspirational that catches us. So here it is. Enjoy! I am.

I don't understand why this is getting such bad reviews, I love Jonah, and to me, this is pure Jonah. Sure, it isn't as hard as Far, or as mellodic as OLD, but CMON!!! This album is amazing. Jonah is a musical genius in our time, though highly underrated, but regardless, I just don't think it's possible for him to make a horrible album. I agree with the other reviewers, however, in that you don't know me, so my opinion does not count, so please do check it out for yourself and see what you think...

If you threw Far, U2, The Police, and Texas is the Reason in a bed together, you would come out with Gratitude -- and a really ugly baby. Yes, the sound is a bit more commercial than you would expect from Jonah, but you can't say that New End Original wasn't headed in this direction. Besides, it pushes Jonah into the mainstream so everyone can appreciate good music. No one on here can tell me that it isn't every band's goal to be heard by the masses of people that listen to radios everyday -- and for that, I praise Jonah for coming up with such catchy music . . . like he's always done. He's aged since Far, and therefore the music isn't as angry, but it's still beautiful and meaningful. Who cares if he isn't the poster boy for the Vegan Nation anymore . . . thank god he finally grabbed the bull by the horns, cut it's head off and took a bite of bloody, juicy meat.

Thank you Jonah for coming up with a fabulous CD that I can keep in my ipod for years to come.


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Good album. This is not FAR, this is not OLD, or NEO. Although, take the catchiest of the songs from each and you'll get an idea. This is "radio friendly" Jonah. I am sure plenty of people are gonna diss this album, it surely has a major label sound to it. Jonah's vocals are solid, to be expected. The songs are melodic. Play the CD on a sunny day, driving around, windows down. All songs are pretty good, although kind of predictable.

At first i hated this, i wanted to hate this...,but i don't. I was expecting more from this release than it had to offer, but that's not to say that what it had to offer isn't good, if not much better than a good deal of their contemporaries. I'm a Far fan, i miss Far, i would have prefered another good Far release to this album anyday, but that's wishing for the impossible. My initial resentment of this record was because i felt that it offered nothing new to the Jonah table. The difference between these songs and onelinedrawing songs, or New End songs just didn't seem different enough to warrent this whole new band, i wished that Jonah had just made this a onelinedrawing release, or perhaps a re-invented New End. But, whatever, it's still pretty good. I don't think the song-writing is on par with Far, or the Sketchy EPs, and those other early onelinedrawing tunes, but it's still Jonah, and he can make a good tune to go along with a great voice. I think this record is certainly better than The Vollunteers, and perhaps ellements of it are on par with Visitor and New End, however i feel the lyrics aren't up to the standards of those two albums. His creative story-telling has drifted from view, that's not to say the lyrics on here are bad, they just don't leave the same kind of Jaw-dropping impression that songs like "14 to 41" or "Better Than This" leave. If you listen to this record hoping for something entirely New and Original from Jonah then you may be disapointed. However, if you look at the record for what it is, just another collection of Jonah sung pop songs that don't stray too far from anything he's done post-Far, then this record seems pretty great.

P.S. Don't be put off by this for supposedly sounding "radio-friendly" it really doesn't sound anymore radio-friendly than anything post-Far, unless by radio-friendly you just mean "Sub-par to his previous work"

If you didn't bail on Jonah after the Sketchy EPs or New End, then their is a good chance you won't feel the need to bail on him after you hear these songs.

Now, if only Gratitude would stay away from the bands 16 years Jonah's junior, and would tour with the Deftones again......i guess that's not really relevent to the quality of this record though.

It just is. Yeah, it's unfair to say. Jonah Matranga has been around the rock block a few times, and so it's hard to really feel like this is a debut, but it's the best that I've heard this year, in the wake of Bloc Parties debuting and Fall-out Boys breaking out into the scene. Unfortunately, neither of the best markets for Jonah's new work are destined to be very receptive.

It's safe to say that Gratitude isn't the jonah matranga of old, or indeed OLD. But it is. Listening to Far is a darker experience than listening to Gratitude. Onelinedrawing is more sad. New End Original is more experimental. But every one of Jonah's incarnations is the same naked lyricism, the same power-through-fragility vocals, and the same purpose musically. Gratitude is called Gratitude for a reason. It's a CD of hope. It's not as diverse as the rest of his work, but it's nothing unexpected and it's nothing of a reversal from what he's been going toward. We, the young, do not realize that a musician who's been in the business for a while changes, and must change to some degree to be honest to themselves. If you can't respect that, you can't respect the musician at all, even in their previous work.

As for the other side of the coin, it's hilarious for me to read the reviews of teens on here who would think Gratitude is trying to profit off the "emo" explosion, as if Jonah wasn't in Far paving the way for emo in the mid to late 90s. If there's anything I've learned about emo, it's that nothing IS emo unless you like it. Unless you hate emo, then it's the opposite. For example, forebears of the genre, like Sunny Day Real Estate, Weezer, and indeed Far, are not emo because they're well respected by non-emo people. Because of this, let's not use such a sordid and meaningless term. Gratitude are what modern rock in 2005 should sound like. Given the musical climate around them, given the changing tastes of people in general, Gratitude is the pinnacle of what modern rock radio should strive to be. It's straightforward, it's meaningful, it's well-produced and well-written and well-performed by some of the least pretentious people ever. It gets its point across without growling, without needing to mask words or add artificial anger (even the self edit in "This is the Part" reflects maturity, intentionally or not. Vulgarity is nothing to be ashamed of, but too much unrestrained makes anyone look like a dullard). It's the band you could play for your mom and dad and they might like too. It just encapsulates 2005 through rock music, and every other similar band is a reference point.

I'm not sure what show other reviewers "saw" them at, but when I got to see them, as headliners, Jonah seemed to be playing for his friends... he was half ecstatic child and half proud parent and seemed to make eye contact with everyone, as if the fact that we were there meant the world... and I'd assume that if you saw them at Warped, with scads of meaningless screamy flashes-in-the-pan, it would be safe to say this would be lost in the sweaty expanses of pseudo-punks shouting for the stuff that actually is generic emo. It's also safe to say no one should blow 50 bucks on merch for a band they didn't really like, but that's nitpicking.

The point is, simple though this CD is, there's a lot to it. If we were to listen to it without the blinders of the angry "devoted fan" who NEEDS more of the same from before, or with a mind open enough to accept that not everything need be tortured, whiny, and peppered with growling, there would be much more appreciation for this.

I'm sorry, but I had to place a review on here to contradict all the really bad reviews that this album seems to have been getting. It seems to be getting the "its just more emo/pop" label...and I suppose that's true to an extent, but its really good emo-pop! Jonah Matranga is a great singer and I've been a fan of all of his various projects. I must say that perhaps this CD is not for everyone...but for fans of this style of music, this is a good buy. There's my two cents worth.