3 out of 5

Label: Odessa

Producer: Jerry Kee

And then I realized I didn’t care.  I mean, I guess I never really cared, but it became clear on Ouvert!.  The Manx have gotten mass acclaim from the get-go with their Floyd-y Beach Boys-y harmony folky sing-songy stuff.  And these guys are slick, and the compositions are generally gorgeous, the mystery of the artwork (which took a turn toward boring with the album prior to this) combining with Kee’s dusty production to drawl up a picture of a band shimmering out of nothing to strum dreamy tunes about…

…about….

See, Kingsbury caught me, initially, with the depressing title opening track on “Let You Down.”  I would learn (and they would show, since that was only their second album) that this was a trend for the group – one or two more aggressively played, downtrodden tracks that take a beautiful tune and sorta turn it on its head with depressing lyrics.  And I dig folky stuff, and “Let You Down” tossed in a couple tracks of this nature plus another trend, one plugged-in tune that rocks out for a moment (y’know, to draw a contrast or something), and so it sorta distracted me into loving Manx.  Even though I’m not sure how often I listened to that album.  Or the next one.  Or the next one.  Or this one.  In fact, I didn’t listen to Ouvert much at all, until prepping for this review, when I accepted that I really just don’t care.  Since ‘Rise and Fall’, the previous album, when the band switched labels and dropped the odd impressionistic cover art style and started hooking up with Wilco, the mood shifted enough to point out that this, to me, is really just a group who know how to compose and know how to play, and work with a producer who knows how and when to leave space for gentle keys or strumming or tap tap tap percussion or a sudden sting of distortion.  But those lyrics – even the seemingly sad ones – are ever so vague, because they just seem like a topping on all the pretty playing.  It’s odd to me that Radar Bros. are consistently criticized for not reaching too far beyond their sad folky realm, and yet Kingbury have been pulling off this same tune forever as well, just getting slicker and slicker at it.  I think what swings people in their favor is that it reminds them – production-wise, vocals, song structure – of bands that are cool, whereas Jimmy Putnam of RB sorta goes off into his own version of shiny depression.

Now I don’t mean to hate on this too much, I’m more responding to my realization of non-careance than to the album itself, which is totally toe-tappy and hits all those desired Manx beats, and is sequenced more successfully than prior albums, methinks – there’s always at least one dull moment to a Manx recording, but Ouvert plays it cool pretty much the whole way through – but on the whole, if you’re not really claiming this as the next big thing in your old fogey soundalike catalogue by track 3, you can probably safely pass by all of Manx’s albums.  Ascenseur Ouvert may be their slickest up to this point, but it’s not going to swing any opinions.  (…e…except mine… I guess.)