Details:
Having been aware of Motive Sounds roster and liked a fair few of the bands involved in it I was surprised to hear this, the debut recording album for manatees, blatantly the heaviest thing on the label. Following a similar path to gods Neurosis, Swans, Toad Liquor and there ilk but retaining a space of its own without ever cloning there idols.
Over the space of 5 tracks the boys display a talent and scope of vision that far outweighs there short career so far. The omnipresent tribal element of Percussion and call and response vocal mantras are used properly, adding layers of heaving weight onto the actual riffs, you don’t need massively distorted guitars to be heavy. Melancholic melody rides along on huge riffs before giving way to subtle samples and mood setting atmospherics.
Track 1 even clocks in at over 15 mins while most of the others hover around the 7 minute mark.
Highlight for me is the final track, which draws on latter day Neurosis like riffs but stays firmly stuck to the floor as the most melodic track on the album. It then picks up pace and goes into this almost Melvins esque repetitive riff that over the last 5 minutes descends into pure noise, with samples, feedback and all sorts of other noise gradually piled on top.
This is a must for anyone that likes the above mentioned bands but with its own twist.
Awesome stuff.
Listen: www.myspace.com/manateetheband
