There’s a ringing majesty to “Turpentine”, the first single from the
Manvils’ new self-titled album. It comes in with a magnetic little
flourish from Mike Manville’s white, 1956 Gibson Les Paul Jr., a beefy
double-time beat and chiming wall of guitar, and the kind of covertly
brilliant chorus that REM used to manufacture out of thin air.
In total, the song comes clad in echoes of all your favourites, from
the Clash to the Who. “I really wanted to start the record with
something that had the best characteristics of the Manvils,” says
vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Manville. “The psychedelia, the blues,
screaming guitars, and big drums.”
It’s a decisive and muscular way to start a record, and with
expectations this high, it oughta be. The Manvils’ 2006 debut Buried
Love cemented the reputation of the Vancouver-based four-piece after
barely a year of explosive live performances. In a city notorious for
its self-loathing, the Manvils struck a rare chord, eventually
achieving the unthinkable with a sold-out release party at one of the
city’s most auspicious mid-sized venues for the 2007 EP Strange
Disaster.
And the song “Strange Disaster” shows up again on The Manvils, in an
altogether more confident and sinewy form. The advances made by the
band in the last year are writ large in its flawless pulse and
corrosive guitar work - due mainly to the introduction of drummer Jay
Koenderman in late 2007 and a generally re-doubled work ethic on …
There’s a ringing majesty to “Turpentine”, the first single from the
Manvils’ new self-titled album. It comes in with a magnetic little
flourish from Mike Manville’s white, 1956 Gibson Les Paul Jr., a beefy
double-time beat and chiming wall of guitar, and the kind of covertly
brilliant chorus that REM used to manufacture out of thin air.
In total, the song comes clad in echoes of all your favourites, from
the Clash to the Who. “I really wanted to start the record with
something that had the best characteristics of the Manvils,” says
vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Manville. “The psychedelia, the blues,
screaming guitars, and big drums.”
It’s a decisive and muscular way to start a record, and with
expectations this high, it oughta be. The Manvils’ 2006 debut Buried
Love cemented the reputation of the Vancouver-based four-piece after
barely a year of explosive live performances. In a city notorious for
its self-loathing, the Manvils struck a rare chord, eventually
achieving the unthinkable with a sold-out release party at one of the
city’s most auspicious mid-sized venues for the 2007 EP Strange
Disaster.
And the song “Strange Disaster” shows up again on The Manvils, in an
altogether more confident and sinewy form. The advances made by the
band in the last year are writ large in its flawless pulse and
corrosive guitar work - due mainly to the introduction of drummer Jay
Koenderman in late 2007 and a generally re-doubled work ethic on the
part of everybody else. And Manville found a perfect foil in producer
Ryan Dahle, who earlier was struck by the raw Manvil talent before
finally bringing them home to Vancouver’s Factory and recRoom studios.
“There was no way around working your ass off on this record because
of Ryan Dahle,” Manville states. “Practicing and songwriting every day,
for eight months. We lived in this world where the only thing that
mattered was the songs.”
Out of Dahle’s boot camp - songs were perfected, deconstructed, and
built up all over again - comes the great leap forward of The Manvils,
where the production is bright, tasteful, and loud enough to rattle all
the right inner-ear bones, and the playing is textured and imaginative.
Everybody is on point for The Manvils, starting with an implacable
rhythm section that can sit in the pocket without ever leaning on the
obvious, like in the swaggering 16ths of album opener “Good Luck Club”.
Or they can go wide, with bassist Greg Buhr lacing yawning
counter-melodies throughout “Hollow Hands”, and drummer Koenderman
bringing the otherwise deliberate “Guillotine” to a boiling tumult of
snare, toms, and violence.
“True Believers” brackets its lighter-than-air, Eagles-inspired
choruses and quasi-Dylanesque poetics with a bruiser’s catalogue of
anguished metallic sounds. By Manville’s own reckoning, “Substation” is
“Smithsy”. “It’s very distinctive,” Manville declares. “That’s when you
hear the Brit side of the band, and then it gets into a fight with the
Americana voice.”
In the gorgeous “Riverside”, a keening guitar hook drifts in and out
of the song, drenching atmosphere on Manville’s curious references to
science magazines and skeletons. Underneath the enigma, it’s a love
song to Mikey’s wife, and in its autumnal feel the closest thing to
Canadiana that the songwriter has ever come up with. “This is an
important record for us and there’s no more important person to me,”
Manville asserts. “And every rock ‘n’ roll album has to have a great
love song. That’s what I think.”
“The Stoker” offers heraldic guitar riffs, “la la la” choruses, and
more sideways hooks, which Manville characterizes as
“Byrds-meets-Motorhead-meets-Thin Lizzy-meets-the Clash”. It’s the
upbeat yin to the minatory yang of album closer “Passport”, which sees
Manville’s cohorts haul out the melodrama for his ominous rumination on
trouble every day, piling out of an extraordinary record with a
deliciously melodic psyche out.
It’s 35 minutes of deft, intelligent, passionate rock ‘n’ roll, and a triumph for everyone concerned.
“A bright energy exists in every corner of this record,” Manville
says. “In every chorus, and every verse. Each time I hear it, still, it
overwhelms me with how proud I am of these guys, and how dedicated Ryan
was. They took these songs, that were written on acoustic guitar in the
my living room, and they were transformed into something that I’m gonna
be proud of for a very, very long time.”
