The Legal Matters • Lost at Sea

Since their formation 13-years ago the band of musical brothers known as The LEGAL MATTERS have thread their unique collective talents together to create exceptional original music that pushes their reputation as a ‘Midwestern Power Pop supergroup beyond the narrow parameters of simple classification.

When they first joined forces members Keith Klingensmith, Andy Reed, and Chris Richards were already key players on the Michigan music scene, with a combined pedigree encompassing beloved bands like The Phenomenal Cats, An American Underdog, and Richards' ongoing solo career with The Subtractions, but with the upcoming release of their 4^th studio album Lost At Sea they have created a musical triumph of sharp hooks, impeccably infectious songwriting, and performances that exceed even the high standards set by the group on their three previous outings.

Previewed with two hit singles, Everybody Knows and The Message, which are already receiving airplay on 60 radio stations nationwide, Lost at Sea is currently up for pre-order and is set for worldwide release on Vinyl, CD, and Streaming on February 27^th.

Filled with sparkling melodies and lyrics reflecting the times we live in, The Legal Matters continue to mature lyrically while retaining their youthful propulsion for creating beautifully structured harmonic Pop songs laden with infectious hooks that cover all variety of topics - many written during the Pandemic - ranging from the changing and challenging political times that we live in, to societal affliction and personal affections that frame these topics with an optimistic musical cushion capable of catapulting one’s consciousness into that rarefied heavenly air that transcends all the clutter and discord.

Also featuring the drumming of Verve Pipe co-founder Donny Brown, the group has undeniably become a force of their own, and more than the sum of their parts. Over the course of releasing three of the most celebrated indie pop albums of recent decades: their self-titled 2014 debut, 2016's CONRAD (one of the few albums by emerging artists to be backed by reissue powerhouse Omnivore Recordings) and 2021's CHAPTER THREE, all three albums  garnered critical praise and clocked high on ‘Best Album of the Year’ lists across the indie pop world

The list of classic artists referenced in those glowing notices include groups like Big Star, Badfinger, Teenage Fanclub, Fountains of Wayne, and Crowded House, which alludes to what listeners can expect on this latest release, reflecting the magic of their chemistry as songwriters, harmonizing vocalists and players.

The title, to be clear, is what Richards calls “a fitting comment about our current political state,” not a reference to the state of the band, who are if anything more on course and full-steam-ahead than ever before. In fact, a more communal creative approach was part of the goal for the writing and recording sessions that yielded the ten glorious tracks that make up the album.

“We wanted to approach this one in a different way,” he notes. “The idea was that each of us would bring in an idea, riff, concept or lyrical hook and build the song together as a group as opposed to demoing fully realized songs. As a result, Lost at Sea is easily the most collaborative record in the Legal Matters canon.”

This can easily be confirmed with the lush, heartfelt lead single, Everybody Knows, which also serves as Lost at Sea’s opening track. The vocal arrangements sounds like the band was channeling the inspirational zeitgeist of Brian Wilson from the heavens above, with intricate harmonies, hooks, and a melody line that inspires and unites the group to reach for the stars.

.Also slated to hit the airwaves and streaming services in advance of the album is “It Doesn't Matter” which Reed calls  “our rockiest tune” and Richards labels “one of the more anthemic tracks we’ve ever gone for.” Combining a Spoon-inspired riff cooked up by Reed with a chorus from Richards and lyrics primarily crafted by Klingensmith and ultimately evoking Split Enz at their best, It's emblematic of the alchemy the band has achieved on LOST AT SEA.

The band's renowned harmonies have never sounded better. Songs like “Shake This Feeling” finds them in cinematic, Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell territory, while “Temporary Thing” melds touches of rootsy country to classic pop with just a touch of noirish mystery. Future single “Let Me Explain” goes full-on Abbey Road to jaw-dropping effect, while the pitch-perfect pop of “Stuck With Me” is front-to-back harmonies, inspired in equal parts by The Kinks and XTC (but pure Legal Matters in execution).

LOST AT SEA closes with a trio of tracks that continue to reveal both its depth and diversity of musical textures. “Marching On” takes another eagle-eyed look at the needlessly fragmented cultural landscape of today, its ever-shifting arrangement and surging tempo building a tension that matches the urgency of its subject matter.

The controlled chaos of its climax dovetails into the stripped down beauty of “Slow Down,” a ballad that evokes the most tender moments of Big Star. And the record concludes with “The Exit Signs,” an ornately arranged retro pop masterpiece and prime example of the band's unique modular approach to writing on the album.  “It has all of our influences in one track. It’s a great way to wrap up the LP,” says Reed, while Klingensmith cites it as his favorite of the new tunes.

High Tides, Bit Hits & Choppy Waves • Navigating Around the Iceberg with Andy Reed

Known and respected for his acumen and skills as a recording engineer as well a musical creator blessed with a keen ear and high standards of quality, in order to get a better feel for the creation of this latest masterpiece, The REVIEW sat down band member Andy Reed to get a closer look at the genesis of this ambitious creative outing.

REVIEW: The last time we sat down was when you released your third Legal Matters album ‘Chapter 3’ and that was five years ago, so how did this new one evolve and what were the group’s goals for this project when you started charting a course to pull it all together?

Andy Reed: Well, the last record Chapter Three was certainly a pandemic record, and then after that my Mother had gotten sick, so there was a lot of personal time off that I needed, which is the  reason why it took so long to make this one. Up until this point,  Chris and I were the primary writers and it essentially would be either Chris or me bringing in enough of a completed song that other members would add ideas to and we would collaborate.  

But with this one, we decided to try something very different where neither one of us would bring in any completed songs. We would bring in some nuggets - maybe a verse or a chorus - and then finish the songs in the room as a Band.  There were sessions where we share lead vocals and I really feel we mixed it up to make this a more collaborative project. Cormic Wright is our band manager and he’s kind of become the 4^th member of the group and he also helped us with lyrics and was at every session as well. I think the album really feels like all four people are involved, along with Donny Brown, so you hear that creative input on every song, and in that regard this is probably the most ‘Legal Matters’ sounding album yet, rather than the band performing an Andy or Chris song.

REVIEW:  All of the band’s album are filled with these beautifully stacked vocal harmonies, which I’m in awe of how you create.  It’s got to be kind of challenging to keep moving forward with something different each time you step into the studio, so you don’t become derivative or repetitive.

Andy Reed: Yeah, for sure. And I think the cool thing about this band is that we always treat our harmonies like an instrument. Rather than thinking about it like a ‘vocal part’, we’ll decide if we want to make it like the main instrument of the song, you know what I mean?

There’s also a few longer songs where we decided to do more musical breaks and sections, so when the harmonies do kick in it has more impact. It’s little more cinematic in that way where we're more orchestral with things and  that way we gave the harmonies a break and let the music take over for a little bit. Then when the harmonies come back in, you feel it more. Rather than having a 3-minute pop song with harmonies the whole time, I think this album has a little bit more of a dynamic where there's some breathing room there.

Because the other guys in the group all live in the Detroit area, what we did was schedule 2 days per song. So they would come up to my studio in Bay City on a Sunday and stay overnight through  Monday.  The first day we would take all our bits that we'd been sending around and then kind of craft the song and finish writing the song and then we would record it right after and over the next day-and-a-half . So then we just did that 10 times. It was fun because we weren't in a rush. Normally, we used to try to do a song in a day.

REVIEW: You’ve signed with a new label - Big Stir Records and already had success with your first single off this release.  What can you tell us about them?

Andy Reed: So Big Stir has been our power pop friends for years. We know a lot of the Power Pop people that belong to that label, and they've been amazing and supportive through the whole process.  They've  just let us do our thing and then they've taken over with all the promotional marketing and have been really great to work with.  They put out about twelve records a year and actually have a new original album by the Strawberry Alarm Clock coming out this year, so it’s a great fit for us. They created our ‘Hardy Boys’ Lost At Sea album cover, which I think is great because we laugh probably 95% of the time we’re together, but our music isn’t comedic at all, so we kind of use the artwork to get a little bit of our humor across.

REVIEW: Lyrically your work is deeper than anything I’ve heard previously from the band. You guys started doing that more on the last album during the COVID pandemic, but this time while exploring the murky depths you shine a light on the topic to take a serious thing and give some ray of joy, lift, and hope to it, so in tandem with the music it manages to lift you out of whatever depression or consternation you might be suffering. It’s very medicinal in that sense.

Andy Reed:  Well, the funny thing is I’m in my late 40s and those guys are now in their 50s and we’re all happily married with kids and stuff, so it’s like we can’t really write sad breakup songs anymore and have it tie in with current state of life. That’s what’s great about music - it captures a moment in time and as you get older your interests get a little more complex. You feel differently about things that occur or happen in your life.  We don’t feel the same way we did when we were 20 years old, but we do like the same music.

REVIEW: What was the most challenging thing involved with making this album?

Andy Reed: With this one I think it was the tress of wondering if this new way of approaching the songs would work. The first two songs we recorded were Exit Signs and Shake This Felling, which is a 5-minute song and goes here and there and has this old Western feel and Wichita Lineman vibe to it threaded in with some noisy sections. 

We really went for something different on that one and once we pulled it off I feel that gave us the confidence to move forward because we knew this new approach was going to work. Once we got over that hump of trying a new way to do things and seeing that it could work, that made all the difference. There was still a little bit of uncertainty within ourselves of like, is this going to work?  But trying was the best part of it - trying something new that we were all excite about and then actually pulling it off.

When  it came time to talk with the Mastering Engineer on this project I said, ‘Dude - I want this to sound like it was mastered in 1972.  I don’t want a ton of low end, I don’t want a ton of high end.  We feel like this is kind of like a time capsule record. So we just went all in on this concept of making it sound like an early 70s album. And we've always dipped our toe into that. You know what I mean? We've always kind of had one foot in that area, but we just went head first this time around.

REVIEW: I realize like the group XTC you guys are primarily a studio band, but do you have any plans to do any shows behind this album at all?

Andy Reed:   Nope, but we are going to a Vinyl Listening Party on March 20^th at The Governor’s Quarters here in Bay City. We’re going to vinyl DJ the album that night and just chill out and sell records and listen to the vinyl release of the album.

REVIEW: Sounds great!  Is there anything we didn’t touch upon that you would like to mention?

Andy Reed:  I would like to throw in how important Donny Brown was to this project. He’s such a valuable piece to this musical puzzle that kind of gets unnoticed unless you know him like we do, and I think on this outing he turns in some of the most inspired drumming I’ve heard him play. He came into every session totally fired up and dialed in a drum sound on a song-by-song basis. He played great and took our basic ideas and what we were feeling and added just the right feeling and texture. 

The difference between Donny and most other drummers is that he plays drums like a songwriter. He felt we were really on to something and shared our excitement and you can hear it in his playing. With myself as a bass player, Donny and I have always shared that connection as a rhythm section, which has been the foundation of all the songs. When you start with something super-inspired like a great drum track and a solid bass track, it’s like everything else is just frosting on the cake.

Those who've followed THE LEGAL MATTERS since the beginning will find everything they love about the band on LOST AT SEA, while recognizing it as a major leap forward on their collaborative journey.

A Few Final Thoughts

For lovers of the hooks and harmonies that truly define the sound of classic pop and power pop and who may have somehow missed The LEGAL MATTERS until now, consider this an introduction to one of the finest practitioners of the genre on the modern indie rock landscape.

The songs on this record tap into the whole of pop rock history, add keen observations that speak to life in the present day, and add up to a work that genuinely deserves to be considered timeless.

Lost at Sea is up for pre-order and presale now by visiting this link.