Man Man Albums (3)
What The Critics Say
Anybody who's seen Man Man perform knows that their CDs don't do justice to their live shows. They're a visual band: woolly bearded, usually wearing tennis shorts and warpaint, and thrashing around the stage like wildmen to tricky time changes. Rabbit Habits finds the band relying less on shock value and absurdity, and more intent on making a congruent album. Having already tested their boundaries, this is a mature showing, finding the band more relaxed (but still plenty tense), more structured (but still experimental), and more restrained (but still pretty crazy). Like on their prior two albums The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face and Six Demon Bag, the music is exuberant and eclectic, but the tracks are less convoluted by excessive instrumentation. Sure there are a lot of instruments -- distorted electric organs, junkyard percussion, horns and wind instruments, indefinable noises, and a surprising use of xylophone -- but it's spacious and scattered throughout. Variety is the spice. There are times to shake a tail feather (the frenetic Looney Toons vibe of "The Ballad of Butterbean" and the head-jerking bungee cord bounce of "Top Drawer") and times to reminisce (the haunting and heartbreaking sea shanty "Whalebones"). It's like they've learned what they're capable of achieving, and now they're less interested in decadence and more excited by songcraft and pushing the limits within the traditional sense. That said, in Man Man's world, nothing is traditional. Everything is blanketed in a carnival smorgasbord: call it a fusion of klezmer, gypsy punk, and experimental rock that's difficult to compare but most comparable to Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. Like Trout Mask Replica, this is a thinking man's album, the type that reveals new facets with every listen. It dips and changes pace quite a few times over as singer Honus Honus adapts accordingly, flipping from Hot Hot Heat sandpapery irreverence to Jim Morrison's bellowing grumbles. It's strange and strangely beautiful, dividing equally between a cartoonish frenzy, sluggish flapper numbers, and mellow waltzes. It's still not exactly accessible, but it's their easiest listen to date, and a damn amazing and amusing one, if you're feeling creative. ~ Jason Lymangrover, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Subjects of huge buzz at South by Southwest 2005 for their circus-of-insanity live show, Philly's Man Man comes across like Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart collaborating on a klezmer-influenced soundtrack to your scariest nightmare about killer clowns. The stripped-down opening track on their sophomore LP, "Feathers," almost borders on accessible, with a simple waltz-time saloon piano and multi-tracked vocals that sound about one whiskey shy of a drunken sea shanty. But by the time you get to track two, "Engrish Bwudd," the band has clearly given in to the temptation of overindulgence, with the whoops, wails, hollers, and growls of a musical madman singing "fee, fi, fo, fum" complemented by falsetto counterparts squealing "I smell the blood of an Englishman." It only gets weirder from there, with all manner of unusual instruments, discordant cacophony, and outlandish shrieking that'd make the Boredoms sit up and take notice, and please-quiet-the-voices-in-my-head psychotic freak-outs all finding their place in Man Man's alternate universe musical reality. Most of this stuff is just too damn weird for all but the most experimental music listener, but when the band reigns in its more outlandish tendencies on tunes like the almost poetic "Skin Tension" and the chugging "Black Mission Goggles," you get the sense there are some fine songwriters lurking beneath all the kitchen-sink craziness. ~ Bret Love, All Music Guide
'The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face'
Release Date 10/19/2004
Tracks 11
Label Ace Fu
See Album Tracklist and Review
