Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop, Top Rated.
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Rating: 4 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
The problem with any band renowned for their live show is how to translate that to an album. On 2006’s Six Demon Bag, Man Man threw everything they had at every song, with the help of every instrument they could pile within arm’s reach. This formula may have worked well on stage – the band has gained a reputation for their wildly entertaining presence – but it came off as just a bit too chaotic on record. Rabbit Habits finds the band ever so slightly reigning themselves in, without succumbing to normalcy, or sacrificing the vitality of their work.
For a band whose main goal is creating a sense of chaos and destructiveness, one of the main impediments can be a directionless, wandering feeling. That’s not the case with Man Man. True, it might seem like they’re wandering, but this is some of the most economical and efficient wandering ever put to tape. The chaotic big-top of ‘Big Trouble’; the Tom Waits on speed feel of ‘Easy Eats or Dirty Doctor Galapagos’; even the minute and a half of ‘El Azteca,’ which would be a throwaway in any other context. Man Man embodies the kind of dangerous psychopath who knows exactly what he’s doing.
