By Jason Walker
If you’ve not heard of Manes before but have even a remote interest in novel approaches to songwriting and generally odd-sounding music, then you should probably give them a look in. Their latest release is a 7” vinyl release with two tracks, featuring ‘Young Skeleton’ on side A and ‘Mouth Of The Volcano’ on the B side.
Prior to being handed this single I decided to give them a quick run through their back catalogue just so I had a rough idea of what to expect and I found myself disappearing down quite the rabbit hole of music that’s extremely hard to pin a specific genre to it. All sorts of influences from prog, doom, electro, and often avant garde – this makes for a band that feels unburdened by typical musical approaches and their latest single is no different.
What strikes me the most about ‘Young Skeleton’ is that the rhythm of the song generally is carried solely by the incredibly gravelly overdriven bass. The hypnotic guitar playing and reverb laden vocals have psychedelic overtones all over that remind me a lot of Pink Floyd’s earlier work. If you’re looking for hard hitting, bombastic rock here, this isn’t it; this is Manes once again tossing your beaten path right out the window: good on ‘em.
On to the B side with ‘Mouth Of The Volcano’. This track couldn’t be more at odds with the A side in terms of its structure and sound. With a start of a ghostly, ethereal mixture of synths, psychedelic drumming that gives away to a slow, doomy headbanger. A subtle melancholy and barely contained energy to this song makes it seem like it’s on the cusp of exploding, this is some real dark stuff. The layered vocals on this oddly remind me of some of Igorrr’s bizarre vocal work, it all combines to a noisy maelstrom that could go on for a lot longer than it’s (almost) four-minute length.
A band that is as ready to experiment on this level is honestly a breath of fresh air as many bands often home in on a specific sound and tend to stay within their comfort zone. This is not the case for Manes; the comfort zone doesn’t really seem to have been there to begin with and I doubt they’ll ever really make one, going on their past releases, and this two-side vinyl is no exception.
- ‘Young Skeletons’ is out now. You can get your copy, and loads of other goodies, HERE.
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