Matchbook Romance – “Voices”

When Matchbook Romance followed up Stories and Alibis with Voices in 2006, the shift in tone was immediately apparent. Gone were the polished, romanticized bursts of early-2000s emo-punk. In their place was something far darker, heavier and more experimental. It’s an album that leaned into the gothic and nightmarish, capturing betrayal, fractured love, and the restless unease of bad dreams. If Stories and Alibis was written for teenage bedrooms lit by Christmas lights, Voices feels more at home in a haunted house.

The centerpiece of this change is Andrew Jordan’s performance. His decision to reshape his vocal delivery for this record gave the album a distinct identity. Instead of leaning into the high-pitched, nasally inflections that marked much of emo at the time, Jordan takes on a more gothic tone: lower, more theatrical and dripping with dramatic weight. It doesn’t always land perfectly, but when it does, it transforms Voices into something unique within the scene.

Instrumentally, the guitars deserve heavy praise. They don’t just provide riffs and chords, they set atmosphere. Reverb-heavy textures, haunting melodies, and carefully layered tones create a spectral backdrop that amplifies the album’s darkness. There’s a gothic shimmer to their playing, the kind of sound that makes this record particularly resonant during October, pairing perfectly with the imagery of jack-o’-lanterns and falling leaves.

Lyrically, Voices is consumed by shadows. Themes of betrayal, nightmares and broken love dominate nearly every track, and while the words occasionally slip into melodrama, they’re delivered with enough conviction that they land more often than not. Where Stories and Alibis felt earnest in its heartbreak, Voices thrives on unease. It’s less about pleading with lost love and more about being haunted by it.

Of course, no discussion of Voices is complete without talking about “Monsters.” The band’s signature song, it’s built around a Halloween-infused piano riff that worms its way into your brain and never leaves. Infectious, creepy and completely unforgettable, it’s a rare crossover moment where Matchbook Romance transcended their scene. The problem, of course, is that it’s almost too good — “Monsters” is such a towering achievement that it overshadows much of what surrounds it.

That’s not to say the rest of the album lacks highlights. “My Mannequin Can Dance” stands tall with its stellar guitar bridge, one of the best instrumental moments on the record, before crashing back into a soaring chorus. “Fiction” showcases Jordan at his most narrative, spinning a story with an urgency that makes it one of the most emotionally gripping cuts on the album. But even these strong tracks struggle to match the sheer magnetism of “Monsters.”

Production-wise, Voices is slick but not sterile. The mix leans heavily into atmosphere, giving space for the guitars to linger and for Jordan’s vocals to echo without drowning out the rhythm section. There’s a deliberate cinematic quality to the way it’s put together, which enhances the album’s nightmarish tone. At times, the sheen can feel a bit too much, dulling the rawness that made Stories and Alibis connect so viscerally, but it works in service of the band’s artistic pivot.

If there’s a major flaw, it’s bloat. Some tracks stretch on too long, repeating ideas that don’t justify their runtime. Others feel like filler, existing mostly as connective tissue between the better songs. That lack of consistency hurts Voices, especially when you factor in how massive “Monsters” is compared to everything else. The record peaks early, and though it never fully collapses, it struggles to maintain momentum across its runtime.

Still, Voices deserves recognition for its ambition. Matchbook Romance could have easily leaned into another Stories and Alibis and cashed in on the Warped Tour circuit, but instead they took a chance on darker textures, more complex arrangements and a new vocal approach. Not all of it works, but when it does, it’s captivating. The result is an album that remains a fascinating, flawed but memorable experiment in the emo/post-hardcore canon, one that still sounds best when the nights grow long and the air turns cold.

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