Artist: Matt Howell
title: Matt’s Happy Good Time Bible Hour
keywords: Christian, comedy, songs, experimental, odd
reviewer: Otto ‘clueless’ Schnachtklubber
Matt Howell is coming across as someone who actually reads the bible, there aren’t a lot of them around; and even few who can turn the pages of the holy book into sources of inspiration for the odd songs that his album ‘Matt’s Happy Good Time Bible Hour’ consist off.
I’m listening to it with as close to zero knowledge of the stories within this book, making these strange songs not a feast of recognition, but more a weird source of intriguing stories that actually make me want to hunt down a nearest bible and look up what Matt is singing about. The story inspired on 2 Samuel 4:5 -12 named ‘Dangly Limbless’ sounds like it’s a monumental horror with body parts being cut off and dangling along on a jolly sing a long melody; this book seems to contain some psychopathic chapters…
And this story about the ‘Plague’
First there was blood, than there were frogs, lice and then maggots? The story might be a bit ‘eew’, but the music is more of an odd jolly kind, making it still a bit a story done by a troubled happy and smiley maniac.
‘Keep it Old School, Old Testament’ is blowing my head with biblical rap that makes me feel like I have to put my hands in the air in the good faith to hopefully receive some sign from above to save me from the madness that I’m hearing.
It’s really weird to listen to strange comedic intended (I believe) songs about things in the bible if you haven’t have a flying clue what it’s all about. In the end all the references of the characters that appear in the book and the stories about them appear to me as an alien language, even though it is sung in the English language.
It’s a bit comparable to listen to a football fanatic if you have never watched a football contest before. Or hearing people talk about all the ins and out of how to knit a sweater and you don’t even know what a sweater is; It’s just abracadabra in the end, making it to me an experience close to listening to a dada performance, while this ‘dada’ actually has a meaning to someone ‘in the know’.
On one side these weird songs make me curious about this famous book and most notoriously about its writers; they must have been high on some crazy stuff when they wrote these things, perhaps magic mushrooms was part of their daily nutrition intake. It’s interesting to hear things you don’t understand, yet I’m not sure if I can judge the book by these songs, or these songs by the book as in all honesty this release is very confusing to me; for whom is this silly album made?
perhaps this is only for the initiated, the people who know god, have this almighty figure in their heart and have daily conversations with him/her or other fellow bible experts. But as a clueless music reviewer with no experience in the religion fields this album is pretty weird in a gibberish way. Did I just book myself a ticket to hell now? Or was this perhaps a preview for what will come to me in the afterlife? Forget burning in the eternal flames, listen to things you don’t understand with silly music on repeat forever and ever; that will be the ultimate hellish punishment! Muhahaha! (imagine an evil satanic laugh)
If this album is a representation of a one hour Bible study, I guess I’ve got a lot to learn.. But if you are a novice and know this famous book from back to front, you might know more of what these songs are all about. I remain clueless, but not clueless enough to not supply you with a link that will take you to this album:
http://matthowell.bandcamp.com/album/matts-happy-good-time-bible-hour
Yeah I Know It Sucks 