At first I was hesitant to make the comparison between Matthew Dear and David Byrne, but I’ve been listening to his discography all morning and I’m gonna stand by my guns. Like at the end of “Psycho Killer,” when Byrne makes his “Ay ay ay ay ay” noise. Or the “Ahh ha ha ha” in “Girlfriend is Better.” Well, Dear makes noises like that, but trips them out with fancy electro-pop reverb while playing the guitar, all with a full band behind him. Furthermore, Dear’s music, like that of Talking Heads, is experimental and inaccessible enough to appeal only to a progressive crowd—a little pretentious, even—while exhibiting real creativity and talent. The pretentiousness, in the end, is well earned.
