Back to the help Matranga enlisted - after starting "Over It" with a gloriously dumb riff, Jonah asks for someone - you, me, everyone - to "help me get over it." Answering affirmatively, crowds from various East Coast shows chime in for the background vox. Matranga had recorded audience members and friends at his grandpa's house, singing "help me get over it" in the background - out of time, off-key, and entirely real.

Sometimes the songs are a little too real. Matranga sounds desperate to adhere to his championed lo-fi recording aesthetic when he sings a few steps back from the mic midway through "Superhero." But that's the selling point, that Jonah's just being real with you. In "Livin' Small," an almost laughably naive dissection of pop culture, he waxes frustrated on "All these punk rock pimps and hoes/Sellin' this and sellin' those/Sodas, cars and phones/I mean, what's the dilly, yo?" Don't be fooled, kids, Matranga himself sold a New End Original song, "Lukewarm," to Coca-Cola, and his unfunky use of the word "dilly" is part of his outsider act. Not to mention, he's been through the major-label machine with his previous band Far, so he's no stranger to kids who want to be rockstars. But to his credit, after being dropped from the mainstream world, he's not gone crawling back and is doing things his own way.

Recorded mostly on his laptop with little effects, "The Volunteers" sounds digitally sterile. There isn't too much distortion on the guitars, although they rock in a perfunctory sense. Thin, stripped- down, naked - the sound is as raw as the emotion, which works to great effect on "Livin' Small" and "Believer," even as it takes a lot of punch out of "A Ghost" and "We Had a Deal." This sterility works to great effect on the new wave "Oh, Boys," even as the bridge lifts into Freddie Mercury harmonies that really suggest rethinking Matranga's musical abilities. There has to be more to this guy than he gives us on wax.

Matranga is really functioning as singer-songwriter, and most of the guitar parts facilitate singing and strumming at the same time. So it's no surprise that the most interesting guitar work is done by others. Ian Love contributes his signature swells to "Superhero" and "Livin' Small," and "Stay" was originally a completed song that Matranga used as an instrumental track. The Cure/Lanterna delayed guitar comes courtesy of Chad Waldrup of Hopesfall. Really though, Onelinedrawing is about the vocals and lyrics, and nowhere are they stronger than in "A Ghost." As a story about a man wanting to give up his responsibilities, he confesses to St. Joe (he makes a few deals with Heaven on this record) that he wants his life back, through the strongest vocals, lyrics and melodies on the album.

"The Volunteers" is a nice little package of an album, bookended by instrumental tracks, with "As Much To Myself As To You" tacked on as an afterthought. It's obvious that Matranga isn't instructing, or proselytizing, just letting us take a look inside his head. Subtlety isn't Matranga's style, so he walks us through it, maybe so we can help him get over it, maybe so we stay, maybe so we believe. If you're not too jaded to accept a message like "Love can find a way," maybe you will.