Member Since: 5/23/2004
Band Website: goodbye-bluemonday.com
Band Members: matthew mournian- voice/guitar
jason hooper- drums/guitar
demetrius antuna- guitar
dario izarraras- bass/voice
Influences: take offs/landings.
loss of time.
awkward silences.
tragedy.
the indecipherable music of the human mind.
those beautiful and fleeting moments of complete clarity.
Sounds Like: Like a jet-plane, Goodbye Blue Monday has the glorious roar, the attention getting muscle, the sky-bound ambition. But like a snake, it knows quiet, how to be smart, and move and writhe with an efficient twitch. Goodbye Blue Monday is San Diego’s new guard. The band’s second album, Help is on the Way, released by Loud + Clear Records (Manuok, Comfortable For You, Via Satellite), is as big and heavy as it is agile, a vigorous mix of subtlety and power.
Songs like “Tonight the World Will Know Your Name†have all the outrageous dance complexity vis-a-vis minimal funkiness of Franz Ferdinand, but never anything retro foolish or conjuring up anybody’s high school glory days. It’s all modern, all new, not touched by the gooey nostalgia and young/old man sentiment rampant in indie rock. (The band may list groups like The Cure as influences, but that’s where it stops.)
“This is Your Four Leaf Clover†begins with a tangled, thorny thicket of guitar riffs that reveal a bit of the band’s past, of guitarist Demetrius Antuna’s last group, The Dropscience. But a minute and a half in, it’s almost radio friendly—if the radio lived in the proverbial Perfect World of all good stuff/zero crap. Singer Matt Mournian cries out “I’ll Survive!†and suddenly you’re sweaty, zonked out of your mind, totally fucking losing yourself on the dance floor.
From there on out, the band just cooks: dropping raw Interpol beats into a sizzling, hissing wok; baking succulent Godspeed You Black Emperor slow-builds, then icing them with the late-night sex beats of Blonde Redhead.
But comparisons are just that—lazy. The record is in and of itself a singular piece of originality. Guitars honk and bleed—technical but ragged—Dario Izarraras’ (lowcloudcover) bass groans out the heartbeat of the album, but knows when to hush up for Jason Hooper’s sinewy drum breaks. (Somewhere in the audience, unofficial fifth member Rob Queenin, the band’s photographer, roadie, driver, etc, is snapping photos maniacally, changing film canisters like gun clips.) Then Mournian comes on—eyes closed, leaning into the mic, guitar pulled tight to his chest—right when you’re ready, and in that moment, you realize that help has indeed found you. –Adam Gnade
Record Label: Interested?
Type of Label: None