MANIMAL - review added 9th June 2009
Album Review: The Darkest Room (2009)
For fans of: Heavy Metal... and SCREAMING!!!
Manimal was one of my favourite TV shows when I was younger. I still have visions of the lead character forming a flattened fist and his skin rippling as he slowly transformed into a panther. It was an insane programme but still gives me fond memories... (ahem)... years later.
Consequently a band called Manimal is already off to a good start simply by giving themselves such a cool name. It's a bit like calling a film 'Paint balling Nudists'. How could you resist?
Manimal come from Sweden, home to so many great rock and metal bands. They consist of Samuel Nyman (vocals), Richard Mentzer (drums), Henrik Stenroos (bass) and Pether Mentzer (bass). The sound is melodious but ridiculously heavy. Think along the lines of a butterfly driving a battle tank. There are nods to prog and thrash in the mix too.
Samuel's voice, at times, goes almost ultrasonic. I suspect his high-pitched antics may put some people off, but he has a great tonal quality and, although he does spend a lot of time communicating with bats, when his voice returns to human frequencies he is impressive. The drums and bass are solid and worthy of a rosette, but Henrik Stenroos is the real star of this release. His playing is absorbingly heavy, rhythmic and atomic-clock precise... and he has that certain indescribable something that makes you want to stomp your feet, clap your hands and head bang like a robot-gone-wrong.
First track 'Shadows' starts with a sublime tone and some cracking drum-abuse. The track doesn't hit any stratospheric highs, but the heaviness is groinally satisfying and the soloing offers a violent take on the late 80's hair metal sound. The following, title, track follows a similar route - it's heavy, but tuneful to the point of sounding like it shouldn't be as heavy as it is. Samuel puts a ton of emotion into the chorus and it really lifts the track.
The guitar sound at the start of 'I Am' is, for want of a less hard-edged description, damned brutal! it has a weird industrial twang to it, as if it's ever so slightly artificial, but the result is so phat it's hard to care. 'Ordinary Man' is surprisingly proggy. The beats are broken and off-camber. The result adds a maturity to the album and sits perfectly with the other, more straightforward tracks. It's refreshing to hear an album with twists and turns rather than every song being a carbon copy of every other.
'Human Nature' is a raucous song with plenty going for it. The fretwork is, again, excellent, although the very silly devil-voices take the biscuit for most memorable feature. 'Spinegrinder' deserves a mention purely for having such a great name. The song is entertaining, but that title and the way Samuel sings at porpoise-pleasing frequencies are fantastic.
Rounding out the album is the heavy and rhythmic 'Dreamers And Fools' and the slower, still rocking 'The Life We Lived'. Both songs keep your attention with aplomb but don't hit the highs of earlier tracks.
The Darkest Room has numerous good moments and few you would describe as bad, but there's little of classic standing. The production is excellent and that guitar work is the stuff of genius, but it's ultimately close-but-no-cigar. Manimal have written a good album. They haven't written an outstanding one.
Check out... The crazy album cover.
Track List:
01. Shadows
02. The Darkest Room
03. Living Dead
04. I Am
05. Ordinary Man
06. Human Nature
07. Spinegrinder
08. Dreamers And Fools
09. The Life We Lived
Label: AFM Records
Artist's websites: Manimal , MySpace
