Aqualung

To most rock fans, "Aqualung" is the name of a classic song (and album) by Jethro Tull. This Aqualung, however, is a totally different animal. To his fans, "Aqualung" is the alias of British singer/songwriter Matt Hayles, whose music ended up in English commercials a few years back! On record, though, Hayles is a little bit Ben Folds and a little bit Pat Monahan with his tunes. He's a craftsman with the piano and uses the instrument to his full advantage.

On his fourth album, Words &Music, Hayles once again cuts a dashing piano rock path, revisiting songs from his self-titled debut, stripping them down to their barest bones and returning them to their acoustic roots. He also contributes a few new songs which are written in the same, spare and naked style. The songs are by no means empty, as Hayles' slightly falsetto voice is fulfilling and carries well over the strumming of his guitar and his intricate, tightly constructed piano melodies. Despite the form, the songs retain a soft flow. "Mr. Universe" sounds like vintage Elton John with its 1970s-style keying, while earlier cuts such as "7 Keys" and "Can't Get You Out of My Mind" are memorably mild and mellow, while album closer "Arrivals" wrenches with vulnerability. Words & Music is the type of record that's best served with wine, at dinner, for the thirtysomethings who haven't lost touch with their youth or their love of music. Don't sleep on the cover of Paul Simon's "Slip-Sliding Away," either. It's a nugget that comes early in the disc.

— Amy Sciarretto
11.21.08

Amiable English singer/songwriter Matt Hales brought his well-crafted, commercially viable adult alternative rock sound over to the United States in 2005 with Strange and Beautiful, a compilation of material from his two U.K. albums that proved as popular overseas as it did in his homeland. A frequent song contributor to popular television shows and films (A Lot Like Love, Gossip Girl, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, One Tree Hill), Aqualung's latest offering falls in the same lush, midtempo camp as Keane and Coldplay, while retaining enough self-effacing humor and warmth to avoid the two aforementioned group's penchant for banal pretense. Nearly all of the material on Words & Music operates in the same theater of midtempo balladry that one would expect from an artist who consistently winds up in films like Wicker Park, but like Rufus Wainwright or Scandinavian crooner Sondre Lerch, there's a lightness to songs like "When I Finally Get My Own Place," "7 Keys," and "Good Goodnight" that keeps the proceedings palatable, even as they're disappearing out of the other ear. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide