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Cute enough to be mainstream, indie enough to be cool, different enough to stand out but normal enough to be accessible... and sufficiently talented to pull it all off.
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It's refreshing to see a talented musician who’s harmlessly heartfelt, but the record would have more edge and lasting value if Jack simply grew some balls.
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Occasionally, you wish Peñate would just calm down already -- even the ballads feel a little rushed -- but his ordinarybloke vocals and eager hooks never fail to please.
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Here was a chance to show that the music was worthy, too. With a singing style in the cockney accent of Lily Allen or Kate Nash, he differentiated himself from these singers by actually playing the guitar himself, with mixture of skiffle and ska
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Even when he tries to make a connection between pickup lines and international tension, in “Made of Codes,” Peñate never forgets that even quasi-protest songs need a good beat.
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Aside from the album not standing out from the competition the individual tracks have trouble standing out from each other.
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Be aware that Peñate doesn't do things by halves, and prepare to feel exhausted from all that joyousness.
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UncutIt's pleasing to come across a record that not only sounds old-fashioned, but whose author seems like a man of principle. [Nov 2007, p.108]
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Matinee is quite good; but 50 years on from the birth of rock'n'roll, quite good just isn't really good enough anymore.
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While most of Matinée will fade away into your brain faster than a pair of his danced-out Nikes, there is a shadow of a hint of a suggestion that there’s something more to Jack Peñate than rapidly-dissolving indie-pop sugar.
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Listening to Matinée straight through is exhausting, like being trapped in the kitchen at a college party while someone with curiously wide eyes Explains It All to you.
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For all his sprightly humour, he doesn’t always come off like the most pleasant of dudes--wonder how controlling of a bandleader the style-juggler is--and on Matinée, he’s less than charming.
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MojoTher are moments of greatness, opening track 'Spit at the Stars' for one, though mostly it's pained adolescent observations about missing you already which doesn't cut it in the big adult world. [Oct 2007, p.92]
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Q MagazineWhat works onstage doesn't necessarily translate to disc, and that'sthe case here. [Oct 2007, p.108]
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Lyrically, things grate from the off, with cringe-worthy and rudimentary rhyming couplets being Peñate’s irritating stock in trade. By the end, everything has blended into a graceless, jaunty melange of up-down guitar strokes, bellowed vocals and mid-tempo skanks.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 4
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Mixed: 0 out of 4
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Negative: 1 out of 4
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KateB.Apr 6, 2008Oh dear. Why are you wasting my time? You sound like Scouting for Girls and you do a little dance with your feet when you sing. Just no.