Jonah Matranga has done just about everything as an indie rocker. The emotional hard-rock of his first band, Far, inspired successful bands such as Thursday.

His solo project, the much more mellow Onelinedrawing, enjoyed a successful run of releases on indie imprint Jade Tree, and received a cult-like following.

His latest band, Gratitude, which includes former members of Crumb and New End Original, another of Matranga's old projects, isn't as full of angst as Far but is much louder than Onelinedrawing.

Matranga's vocals are, surprisingly, the driving force on most of the 12 tracks.

This is Gratitude's self-titled debut and a much different approach for the singer since the under produced mumblings of a lot of the vocals on the Onelinedrawing releases.

Songs such as "Last" and "Drive Away" rock in a Jimmy Eat World-kind of way, but not in a faceless way as the instrumentation of Gratitude's material is much more complex and experimental.

"This is the Part," "Feel Alright" and "All in a Row" are the likely addictive songs on this catchy record and could easily make Gratitude a common name on modern rock radio in the coming months.

While tons of records in this same vein have been released in the past few months and will probably continue to flood the market for a while, Matranga's unique songwriting and thought-provoking lyrics keep Gratitude honest. But the longevity of the band isn't very promising, considering Matranga's history of jumping from project to project.

This band has what it takes to stay around for a while, if Matranga can stick around.

-- Reviewed by Brandon Linton