Austin post-punk trio delivers an excellent second album
Austin, Texas's Manikin is one of the best post-punk bands going today - largely because it doesn't ignore the "punk" part of the equation. The "indie-weirdo-art-punk-new-new-wave crowd" (as one prominent label guy has called it) ought to find Manikin's latest full-length very much to its liking. Hell, I'd go as far as to recommend the album even to people who don't usually dig the post-punk thing. If the only two types of music that really exist are "good" and "bad", then Manikin is definitely in the former category.
Manikin possesses none of the qualities that make most art-punk/new wave bands such pointless bores. This is NOT another trendy bunch of hipster prettyboys whacking their willies to old Gang of Four and Mission of Burma records and trying to pass off the resultant derivative jism as "new" music. Manikin doesn't specialize in noise for noise's sake...or in affected gloom or cheesy synth-rock. By now, the band has even managed to outgrow its old press clippings, the influence of TSOL and Warsaw/Joy Division no longer obvious or even particularly noticeable in its music. Manikin sounds like Manikin: ominous and angular but with a rawness and flamethrower urgency that are usually missing from today's "post" punk music. Manikin sounds like a punk band pushing the boundaries of the genre - not an indie-rock group trying too hard to sound "post-modern". With its visceral vocals, slicing guitar lines, and strong no-frills production, Still rates a spot in your CD collection next to the Fuses' year 2000 post-punk masterwork Are Lies.
Manikin is at its best when it's rocking hard, but the winning sequencing of Still makes fine use of the album's slower, more plodding tracks. Still feels like the soundtrack to a movie, and its moody middle portion (tracks 3-5) is not so much a bore as it is a slow buildup to an intense climax. Nothing much happens, but you can feel the tension mounting and your nerves wracking. Perhaps this is the part of the movie where the protagonists hide in silence, the nearby footsteps of the secret police suggesting imminent doom. The fierce "Stand Still" breaks the tension and propels the album into a climactic, three-song stretch run, singer Alfonso Rabago barking these highly-appropriate lyrics: "I can't keep still/And I think I'm about to freak out!/I can't stand it no more/Get me out of here!" This song, like so many others on the album, bleakly depicts the hopelessness and futility of life in this dehumanizing age. No, kids, this is not the feelgood release of 2005.
Still's stellar bookend tracks deserve a mention. "Face the Wall" kicks off the album with a bang, working a dark '81 California punk attack reminiscent of Manikin's first album. Then comes "Disconnect", a standout track from the band's last EP, which reappears here sounding punkier and even more frantic than before. Fast-forward to the very end of the album..."Carry On" is a welcome, way-out-of-leftfield surprise. Drummer Alyse Mervosh takes over lead vocals on this minimalist pop gem, which recalls the sparse, wintry beauty of the first Velvet Underground LP. Mervosh sings plaintively overtop a military drumbeat and Bill Jeffreys's sweet-but-somber trumpet, the song closing the album in a calming, sad-pretty manner. This is how the movie version of Still ends - not with an explosion, but rather with a serene sunset. The credits roll, and the audience pauses to reflect on what they've just experienced. Methinks they'll leave the theater impressed.
---Lord Rutledge, opinionated asshole
If they added any more reverb to guitarist Alfie Rabago's voice, he'd be across the street holding a tin can up to his mouth as sound waves traveled a piece of string. Fortunately for Manikin, sophomore LP Still carefully toes the line between complete distortion and mind-bending transience. Now with ex-Winks drummer Alyse Mervosh behind the kit (and behind the mic on "Maps"-esque closer "Carry On") and B.J. Schindler thumping rhythm, the local trio has sprinted away from classic punk rock toward a more textured, euphoric atmosphere. Opening with a firey, scolding piece of pre-1980 CBGB's, "Face the Wall," Still whips through nine guitar-driven warnings, all spun with dueling amounts of anxiety and apathy. While "Disconnect" wouldn't be out of place on some late-night Adult Swim cartoon ("Danger! Danger! Forbidden zone!"), "Monkey Blood" fills the political hole. What the years have provided Manikin is retrospect. No more are they malcontented youngsters as heard on their eponymous 2002 debut. Now they're empowered, and the anger built up in "Lose Control" proves who Rabago has become: an artist hellbent on speaking his mind. And if it's too much reverb for you, you just don't get it.
Go to Manikin's web page, and you'll be greeted with these words: "MANIKIN rose from the gutters after the war. Pass the bombed tenements and department stores, under the blood red skies, a movement was born to remind us of the past we have forgotten."
I couldn't think of a better intro to the Manikin experience! This Austin trio sounds like it stepped out of the pages of the dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel that I hope to write someday. Its foreboding brand of punky new wave isn't just creepy and anxiety-strewn; it's also totally rockin'! I know the whole "post-punk" scene is starting to seem really played out these days, but bands as good as Manikin transcend sub-genres, pigeonholes, and scene splinters. Simply put, M.4 Manikin is a staggeringly good EP. It's an ominous blast of ferocious, disconcerting art-punk...with daunting lead guitar action worthy of an early Joy Division single!
A-side cuts "Disconnect" and "The Search" are dense, dark rockers, juxtaposing snotty vocals and driving energy with eerie atmospherics. A noisy wall of guitar dominates the mix, and an echo-y effect on the vocals achieves a chilling air. This is the soundtrack to the modern world¹s inevitable demise, a warning call that ought to be piped into the strip malls and downloaded to your cell phone. Surely, it's "punk" enough to get the kids moshing and pogoing, but still this sounds like a record you'd be listening to in the year 2055, while you¹re making love to your robot girlfriend and watching TV coverage of nuclear war on the mini-screen implanted in your eyelid. This is a skillfully-concocted blend of searing aggression and under-your-skin tension. I'm reminded of the late, great Fuses.
On the B-side, Manikin covers Joy Division's "Shadowplay", doing so in a manner that's neither daringly original nor pointlessly reverential. And that seems fitting. Manikin may owe at least a little debt to Ian Curtis and co.; but truthfully, this a unique, exceptional band that cannot be dismissed as just another punk/wave clone. Like all the best bands, they should be commended not for playing a particular style, but rather for doing it so marvelously.
It's likely that by the time this group's next full-length comes out, Now Wave Magazine will no longer exist. So I'm tipping you off in advance and commanding you to buy a copy. Underground rock needs more bands with this kind of talent and vision.
In a city (Austin) where most of the local bands blur together and sound the same (generic), Manikin stand out. The three songs here are a good representation of the band. Without sounding at all cliche, Manikin borrows from both the Wire-Gang of Four-Joy Division and LA-Dangerhouse schools of punk. The Cheifs' "Tower 18" is similarly written to the types of songs Alfonso is composing, though Manikin is more dark and mysterious. Two originals on the A-side and a great version of Warsaw's "Shadowplay" on the flip.
"Neoteric punk/wave with early 80s socal punk tendencies like "Mommy's Little Monster" era Social Distortion (Spiked hair, nor pompadour!), "Abolish Government" era TSOL with some Black Flag/Gregg Ginn solos thrown in from time to time."--- www.blankgeneration.com
"Mid-paced, good lyrics, intelligent production with shifting vocals and non-cliche guitar squeal." --- Maximum Rock N Roll
"Nothing quickens the pulse like a good rock and roller coaster ride on a previously unknown punk band...it's local debuts like this that have you fumbling for the music listings to see which dive they're playing." --- The Austin Chronicle
"It has a heavy early L.A/So Cal sound ala TSOL, Red Scare (again), Mood Of Defiance and other 80-82 So. Cal bands mixed with a goth/arty punk sound. These guys stand out amongst the crowd in today's world of Emo crap and MTV punk!" --- Rock and Roll Outbreak
"This is easily one of the coolest bands going. Instead of the whiney crap I expected, I got a totally unique brand of PUNK ROCK. Try and picture early Dag Nasty covering Joy Division. It's got depth without losing its balls and borrows from the past without seeming retro."---Now Wave
"Austin's always good for throwing out a great band or three that you've never heard of. Relatively recent arrival Manikin blends distorted surf-crazy guitars with a good ol' 1977 punk chug to fairly thrilling results. There's an unmistakable SST Records-type vibe here, an independent (and in this case, barely produced) spirit that runs through the songs that's utterly unpretentious and completely devoted to developing a sound. A press clipping pegs their trip as Dag Nasty crossed with Joy Division, though I don't really hear the latter, unless its in the paranoid disconnectedness of the lyrics. But the real story is in Alfonso Rabago's skipping, reeling guitar runs, which rampage with glee throughout in a twisted echo from the catalogs of Link Wray and Chuck Berry to Greg Ginn and Curt Kirkwood. Worth a listen."---Luke Torn Pop Culture Press
This is "unique" stuff. The biggest influence I could sort out on this record may be a wink to immortal Joy Division...but it also kinda reminded me of stuff like Los Olvidados or Drunk Injuns...that was cool back in the 80's. (Don't tell Mofo, he might kick my ass). There's not a lot of bands doing there own thing nowadays...not to mention doing their own thing and pulling it off, but I think Mannikin does. There were times where this got a little smart on me, but I'm kinda impatient like that...but then along comes another crazy guitar lead to reel me back in. Another great fuckin Austin band...gonna get me together some money and move to where the action is.----www.x2rr.com
Throbbing bass lines punctuate many of the songs here, while the guitars chop through the tunes, giving them a slightly less macabre Joy Division touch. Others have a similar postpunk sort of vibe while still maintaining a likeable, but not overly happy, pop enthusiasm. It's a lot like some of those early '80s English bands except that these guys retain that "we are still playing in Austin, Texas garage" feel. Highly recomended for those of us completely sickened by the numerous bands that attempt to duplicate the same sounds.--- Punk Planet (with a "recomended" ear mark)
A band from Austin who sounds like they came from California's South Bay, circa 1981 or so. Good sounds here.----Razorcake
Austin's Red River strip stands on the skinny shoulders of punky trios like Manikin. The groups self-titled debut on local indie Super Secret was an Orwellian poison dart aimed at today's mall monarchy. (Beerland, 10pm)--- Austin Chronicle SXSW Picks and Sleepers 2003