Matt Nathanson - Modern Love

"This record feels like a beginning says Matt Nathanson of Modern Love (June 21, Vanguard), the eagerly anticipated follow up to his 2007 breakout album Some Mad Hope and massive two-million-selling hit single "Come On Get Higher". Written and produced with longtime collaborator Mark Weinberg, Modern Love is a confident, groove-friendly collection distinctly modern adult songs that Nathanson says pays spiritual homage to the mostly British art-pop of the 80's, songs by Depeche Mode, David Bowie, INXS and Tears for Fears that he says "didn’t sound current...they sounded like what was going to be."

Some Mad Hope put Nathanson on a larger stage, figuratively and literally. Playing before thousands of fans, not hundreds, while selling more than 300k albums gave him two options: continue the acoustic folk/pop troubadour role that had brought him to that defining moment or expand his sound and vision with a fresh approach. Nathanson chose the latter. Songs were formed around "ideas". He and Weinberg were "tinkering and pulling apart" the new compositions, constructing loops of beats, basslines and layers of drums.  Swapping parts. It was, Nathanson says simply, "liberating". Tracks like lead single "Faster" and the hit-in-waiting "Run" (featuring Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles) have a vibrant propulsive energy while the exhilarating "Drop To Hold You" has an Edge-like guitar and arena-sized power punch.

Matt Nathanson - "Drop to Hold You" (from Modern Love)

Matt Nathanson - "Faster" (from Modern Love)

Stream Modern Love in advance of release at AOL.

Photo Credit: Myriam Santos