Tabitha's Secret - Don’t Play With Matches
3 am
Forever December
Here Comes The Horses
Paint Me Blue
Dear Joan
High
Unkind
Jesus Was An Alien
Tired
Swing
3 am
Forever December
Label: Forbidden Records
Year: 1997
Producer: Jay Stanley & Tabitha's Secret
Total Playing Time: 70:07 m:s
Tabitha's Secret describe their music as jangly alternative rock. I had been listening to this album for a few days when I heard the first song 3 a.m. on the radio. It was performed by Matchbox 20, who've been doing well Stateside from what I've seen on the net. I'm not sure what the story is with Tabitha's Secret and Matchbox 20. I think some of the members of Tabitha's Secret split to form Matchbox 20. The Tabitha's Secret web site makes mention of a lawsuit regarding 3 a.m.
The first time I listened to this I thought of Hootie & The Blowfish. That makes them post-Grunge acoustic popsters in my pigeonholing system, what they are in yours I don't know.
3 a.m. is radio friendly and destined to get inside your head. It's easy to see why the song has been a hit single. Forever December displays similar qualities. There are plenty of other mid-tempo jangly semi-acoustic tunes that maybe aren't quite so immediate but which work well. For example - Paint It Blue, High (a bit like Nirvana with acoustic guitars), Tired and Swing. I'm afraid the ballads Dear Joan & Jesus Was An Alien sound dreary to me.
I guess regular Mood Swings readers would expect me to hate this. Well, truth be told, the first couple of times I listened to this I was unimpressed. But, it is hard to resist the charms of 3 a.m. and Forever December and several of the other more uptempo ditties. The ballads are irritating, but with 70 mins of music to choose from, you can always program your CD player to skip these out. This is modern sounding music that is actually worth listening to.
Rating: 7/8
