Insert Coin, the debut album from DC resident and onetime Army trumpeter Matt Rodela, is full of sounds that will be familiar to any East Coast music fan. There is certainly a great tradition of horn-laden bands in the Baltimore/DC area, and Rodela fully embraces that heritage. Though his admitted influences lean toward artists like Chicago, Dave Matthews Band, and Elvis Costello, there’s no denying the pronounced Baltimore boogie that can be heard in the album’s punchy horn lines. Along with that funky element, there are shades of the acoustic, multi-faceted roots rock that once thrived in the area. There are many structural and compositional similarities to Dave Matthews Band’s worldly catalog, and there’s an all-inclusive vibe that is mildly reminiscent of the jam band style. That is, to say, that Insert Coin’s 11 tracks incorporate everything from jazz and world music to hard rock and mainstream pop. The prevailing vibe is more Gin Blossoms than Grateful Dead, though, and the result is and album of entirely inoffensive, pleasantly uncomplicated pop rock that stands to satisfy a wide age demographic.
Lyrically, the songs are the kind that you can completely ignore or choose to dissect. There’s no subject matter on Insert Coin as arresting as an embittered Costello rant or a soul-searching Matthews soliloquy. From that standpoint, the content is in the same vein as a Jason Mraz or Jack Johnson; plainspoken, lovelorn and non-confrontational. Rodela does affect a very Costello-like singing style at times, often hitting the first word of each line harder than the rest and fastening the slightest croak to his otherwise clear voice. Whether or not the listener pays attention to the words, Rodela’s singing combines with his multi-instrumentalism and a band of fine players to create a calming, occasionally infectious whole. Oddly enough, the horn section isn’t the rotating facet of the band. Rather, it’s the keyboardists that are shuttled in for half of the album, along with a couple of guest vocalists and guitarists.
The stability of the brass trio (Rodela on trumpet and flugelhorn, Brian Falkowski on saxes and flute, and Mike Weglein on trombone) is evident from the first track, “Better Days,” where they liven up the spaces of an otherwise pedestrian mid-tempo rock groove. After hearing Rodela’s lively solo alongside Josh Distefano’s fussy organ licks, the listener will beg for more horns at every opportunity. Rodela obliges with another gorgeous solo on the album’s jazziest number, “Melts Away,” and the whole horn section whispers for a bit before Falkowski adds a soulful sax embellishment. Drummer Anders Eliasson does a remarkable job alongside principal bassist Tomas Drgon, and they match every mood Rodela can conjure. Eliasson’s insistent rimshots drive the melancholy verses of “I’ll Remember You” while Drgon adds dramatically declining bass. The cheeky “SWM,” which humorously addresses the perils of online dating, finds Rodela at his most lyrically inventive and the band affecting a kind of blue-eyed soul crossed with a strummy roots-rock melody.
About halfway through the listen, the comparatively bland “Autumn Breeze” raises the first red flags concerning this album. Though Rodela stirs in plenty of influences other than pop and rock, rarely do they rise to the forefront of the music. Rather, the sound of Insert Coin is more homogenized than the band’s influences and abilities would lead the listener to believe. “Halfway There” is about as radio-ready as a song can get, but the listener has already heard similar songs, and they all start to sound the same after half an hour. The album rolls on with zippy horn lines in “Look Away,” and there’s an elegant cello part that separates “Think of You” from the rest of the pack. But they’re still a bit bland and sappy, and the listener has been down the same road 5 or 6 times by this point of the album. Rodela would have done well to pare Insert Coin’s length by a couple of songs and focus on the more exciting material, but this album is just the start for the talented songwriter. As he says in the sunny, beachy “Top of the World,” “it’s a long road to the top.”
Review by Bryan Rodgers
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
