Local Album Review // Matt "Broke" Boland // Omnium-Gatherum
4.5 stars out of 5
A 37-track, double-disc, CD-only compilation with a running time well over 2.5 hours, Omnium-Gatherum shows who Matt "Broke" Boland is. For over 20 years, Boland has been tirelessly entertaining audiences in Erie and beyond. This release distills those efforts, as myriad as they are, into one wholly encompassing portrait of an artist. Neither meant to be an exhaustive discography nor a "greatest hits" record, the title describes it well — a faux-Latin term for a miscellaneous collection of things, a hodgepodge of various items. It is, in spite of this, fairly well organized. The 19-track first disc is titled "Broke'n Strings," a play on both his cash-strapped, scrappy acoustic persona and his integration of fiddle, violin, and viola parts. The second (18-track) disc is titled "Electric Things" and caters to his amplified output. The anthology does exactly what it sets out to do. Like a curated beer flight, it provides a sampling of the diverse projects Boland has helmed, giving an overall flavor profile that's more than the sum of its parts. The grouping helps, and there are even different versions of three songs that serve as definitive placemarkers. Without the online playlists and constantly shifting band names, titles, and album covers, it's much easier to simply focus on Boland as the performer. With Matty B & the Dirty Pickles, Potwhole, Broke Boland (solo), the Broke Boland Band, The Broke Boland String Show, the (non-dirty) Matty & the Pickles, Bootlegger's Bible Club, and his Buddy Holly theatrical revue, it's understandably a little hard to keep it all straight. Through it all, his high-energy blend of rockabilly, folk, punk, bluegrass, indie, and Americana shines through. With tenacity, humor, passion, and the endless drive to perform, Boland feels poised to deliver at least another two decades for Erie's music fans.
