Man Man, originally from Philly, recorded their latest album, Life Fantastic, in a studio in Nebraska. Perhaps there's something about this combination of Eastern indie noodle-ing and Midwestern sensibility that helps hold this whole album together. Man Man to me was always a band that teetered on the edge of chaos in terms of their musicality, especially during their live show. Despite many visits to the big stage, they're still not a band that makes singles, and sometimes the dissonant creepy keyboards are, well, creepy. But in the studio it seems they have a way of channeling their disorder to make fun songs you can actually hum and sing along to. Some songs on this album read like Tom Waits, others remind me of Firewater, but you can always tell it's Man Man (largely thanks to Honus Honus' raspy vocals). There's a few snoozers, ("Oh La Brea,") but there are plenty that will get stuck in your head - "Life fantastic," "Pirahnnas Club . So although wikipedia still brands them as an 'experimental' band, I believe by now they know what they're doing quite well, and their experiments come with a clear hypothesis and lots of grant quality specific aims.
0 comments:
Post a Comment