Matt Duke, Kingdom Underground

My cynical side wants to sneer at Matt Duke’s Kingdom Underground, tossing it aside as just another Adult Alternative-ready singer-songwriter. Fortunately, that cynicism ends up being undermined by Duke himself, who happens to be an earnestly sweet/bitter pop-rock guy with a sensitive, unthreatening voice that can jump from Rob Thomas-y growl (“I’ve Got Atrophy On The Brain”) to Chris Carrabba-esque emo yelp (“The Father, The Son And The Harlot’s Ghost”) and — definitely most importantly — some genuine songwriting chops.

If it weren’t for the latter, Kingdom Underground really would be a “do we really need another Gavin DeGraw? heck, do we even need one?” disc. To his credit, though, Duke demonstrates that he knows his way around a song, crafting a handful of catchy, shy-boy ballads and (soft) rockers that owe as much to, say, Elliott Smith as they do to more contemporary troubadours like Mr. DeGraw. On “Rabbit,” for one, Duke’s voice is delicate to the point of shattering, matching perfectly with the soft atmospherics and up-front gently-plucked guitars, and the song slowly and methodically unravels the collapsing relationship about which Duke is singing.

He’s no one-trick pony, either; more uptempo, “rocking” songs like the heavily Mae-sounding “Opossum,” the haunted “Rose,” or the bitterly self-loathing “Sex and Reruns” don’t feel forced but in fact come off nicely, in spite of being less fragile and gentle. The latter track actually provides the closest touchstones to Duke’s sound, at least for me — the seamless melding of minimal electronics and deft singer-songwriter pop makes me think of David Garza or Arthur Yoria more than anybody else. Then there’s “A Happy Hooligan,” which dives headfirst into psych-rock territory with overdriven guitars, Ben Folds-ish keys, and some fatalistic meditations on death and authority and whatnot. (And does this mean Duke’s a devotee of long-dead comics?)

So, while there’s maybe not a lot of new ground broken here, what Duke’s doing definitely ain’t bad. The album as a whole won’t make it onto my top-ten list, sadly, but a few of the songs might, notably “Sex and Reruns,” “Rabbit,” and “The Father, The Son And The Harlot’s Ghost.” Nothing bad about that, right? And yeah, I’ll definitely have to keep an eye on this guy later on down the road.