The Philadelphia quintet boldly incorporates a dizzying cast of bohemian noises into the 13 tracks on "Rabbit Habits," an album whose name refers to bunnies eating their young. The record title's obscure origin sets the tone for what lies within the music itself--a decidedly strange mix of blitzed and rowdy Jim Morrison-style vocals and frisky, circus-ready musical journeys.
The songs can feel as frantic as a scream-inducing rollercoaster ride or as meandering as a drunken waltz. Regardless of the individual variations from track to track, Man Man approaches their craft with childlike imagination and an unapologetic roughness. This is the kind of music that is adored by hippies and five year olds and, at the very least, gives everyone else an idea of what the world's first caveman band might have sounded like.
A tangled web of piano melodies, bells, cheering crowd samples and general upbeat big-top zeal, "Hurly Burly" is a standout moment from "Rabbit Habits." A runaway xylophone and silly verbal percussion elements make "The Ballad of Butter Beans" a fun experiment on musical accents and pitfall choruses. Throughout "Rabbit Habits," it's hard not to imagine raunchy scenes involving sweaty dive bars filled with beer-bottle-breaking barbaric madness, sweaty mustached men and the occasional clown on stilts. That's just scratching the surface. "Rabbit Habits" has enough eccentricity and psychedelic vibes to take you just about anywhere your mind is willing to go.
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Wednesday 28 May 2008
Album Review: Man Man, "Rabbit Habits" (Anti-)
With a barrage of instantly quirky instrumentations--involving squeaky toys, xylophones, pots, pans and sousaphones--Man Man nonetheless make a serious point on their third album: to be theatrical, percussion-driven artists, gleefully teetering on a fine line between the indie-rock ruckus of Modest Mouse and the playful chaos of Phish.
