Search - Mansun :: Six

What's up with those Brits and their love of American soul? Not that everybody doesn't love Al Green, but there's something unique about the British way of grafting American R&B onto their pop music. Following in this tradition is Mansun, who is combining blue-eyed soul vocals with post-shoe-gazer, meat-grinder guitars. It's as if Kenny Loggins was leading an army of effects-pedals-crazed guitarists in front of a wall of Marshall stacks. But that's just the starting point for this oddly complex disc. Each listen will reveal more careful textures, peculiar details, and quirky sonic hallucinations. In "Legacy," a whirlwind of altered guitars threatens to swallow Paul Draper's gorgeous falsetto. But it's in "Fall Out" when the disc takes off for uncharted regions. Copping Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" and overlaying it with a funk groove, the song then goes into what seems like a hundred tempo and texture changes in only 3 minutes and 47 seconds--all before tumbling and tripping into the next track. And that sets the tone for the rest of the album. It barely sits still for a minute, from the rubbery guitars of "Anti-Everything" to the munchkin vocals at the end of "Serotonin." 6 takes the Abbey Road to hell. --Nick Barry