Matt and Kim

Grand

[4.5/5]

Considering Matt And Kim are famous for looking like they’ve just won the indie-rock equivalent of the Powerball lottery, the last thing hipsters-wannabe or otherwise-want is for them to get serious. But damn, the cutest couple this side of Jack and Meg do exactly that on the shockingly accomplished Grand. Right off the top, the keys-and-drums duo make it clear they’ve picked up a trick or two since their caffeine-jacked, eponymous 2006 debut. Forget relying on dance-floor-destroying synth-bombs and sloptastically minimalist timekeeping: “Daylight” incorporates classic pop piano, soft-focus keyboard washes, a trip-hop backbeat and candy-swirled horns. The experimenting doesn’t stop there, either; “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare” combines doomsday-thump drums with symphonic string swells, and “Cutdown” offers a neon-splattered take on prog-tinted post-punk that’s more England ’82 than Brooklyn ’09. Pabst Blue Ribbon-bloated hipsters bitter that Matt And Kim have moved beyond the Williamsburg kitchen-party circuit can relive the good old days with the frenetic Pac-Man new wave of “Cinders.” As for everyone else, get ready to marvel at a dramatic leap forward that more than lives up to its title. (FADER LABEL; faderlabel.com) Mike Usinger

ROCKS LIKE:

Death From Above 1979’s You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Fever To Tell

Mates Of State’s Team Boo

IN-STORE SESSION WITH KEYBOARDIST/VOCALIST MATT JOHNSON

Your first album was totally stripped down. What were the challenges of doing something more ambitious?

The difficult thing is to know when to stop. When you have ultimate freedom and no time frame other than what you’ve given yourself, it’s easy to go way too far, make everything too cluttered, and to lose the beat and melody.

Judging from your live shows, it seems you both might have a touch of ADHD. Was focusing difficult during the writing of Grand?

Songwriting is the initial reason that I wanted to have any sort of involvement in music. But I have a tough time finishing things. On the other hand, Kim is very much a doer who just gets it done. This album took nine months and-although, granted, we were touring in between and whatnot-it would never have got finished if it weren’t for Kim keeping me on track.

Based on Grand, touring steadily for the past couple of years seems to have made you better musicians.

On [2006’s Matt And Kim], we wrote those songs in the first year we were learning to play our instruments. So basically, we started with the bar pretty low. In the two years after that record, with all the traveling, we definitely became better instrumentalists.

You started out playing strictly for fun at house parties. What stands out as a moment when you couldn’t believe how far you’ve come?

I have a memory of being in Oslo, Norway, at Oya Fest. That morning we woke up in the hotel and turned on their music channel, and our “Yea Yeah” video played three times in, like, two hours. We were like, “Norway loves us!” Then we went out and played to this multi-thousand-person crowd that was just nuts. I was like, “We are nowhere close to home, and yet all these people are singing along even though they don’t technically speak my language.”

Are you as happy offstage as you look when you are performing?

We’re happy people. We get to do what we like. If I love to do anything, it’s play music, and for the past couple of years we’ve got to only do that.

So has Matt And Kim become a well-paying job?

Surprisingly so. It makes no sense to me, but it is. But we’ve got low overhead; we share a bed, and we actually share a cell phone. That’s how much time we spend together. Also, we’re fairly responsible. Well, Kim more than myself. [MU]