Mansun - Attack Of The Grey Lantern
Mansun have been around for nearly two years now, and when I first heard them, a single that is not included on this album, I thought they were one of a wave of Oasis clones. Before hearing this album I was a bit apprehensive about them because I had the impression that they were just another copycat lot who had just decided to jump on the bandwagon. How mistaken could I have been.
The album is flooded with atmospheric moodiness which is obviously going to draw unavoidable parallels with the likes of Radiohead and the Manics, however Mansun have avoided the shouts of plagiarism and have created their own distinctive sound. The album begins with strings aplenty over which Paul Draper, the writer of all their songs, questions his mortality and religious predelictions. Then it’s straight on to ‘Mansun’s Only Love Song’ that is about a woman named Mavis who reappears in a number of songs but according to the title, only as an object of desire in this one. Mansun have a real feel for the epic and there are similarities with Suede’s grandiose ‘Dog Man Star’ album where a few of the tracks trail off into seven minute journeys of instrumental adlibbing. Take ‘Taxloss’, one of the most stunning tracks on the album, it starts off much like ‘Introducing The Band’, then becomes a catchy pop tune and finally evolves into the work of an indulgent guitarist. It is not all immense works of brilliance such as ‘Wide Open Space’ with its haunting air of sadness, there are also contrasts to this in songs like ‘Stripper Vicar’, a jibe at the authority of the Church and the occasional scandalous antics of its less than devoted servants.
I wish Mansun could decide on what image fits them best because it seems to have been changing constantly throughout their career, at one point Britpop types with their obligatory OCS hats but now they have turned into eye shadow wearing pseudo anti- Britpop wannabes. Sometime last year Mansun parted with their drummer and with him went his perchance for using a drum machine in their songs, which could have dramatically affected the whole sound of this album and possibly ruined it into an indie/dance crossover type of thing.
The epics continue with ‘Naked Twister’ which follows the classically titled ‘She Makes My Nose Bleed’ and it all comes to an end with ‘Dark Mavis’, which brings together the two main characters of the album, the stripping vicar and of course Mavis. A sense of loss and despair washes over the ending where Paul sings, "In the path of the righteous man, there is little rubble where I stand." Mansun have created an adventurous and colossal debut that is nowhere near ‘egg shaped’. (8)
Jaso
