There’s a ringing majesty to “Turpentine”, the first single from the Manvils’ new self-titled album. It comes in with a magnetic little flourish from Mike Manville’s white, 1956 Gibson Les Paul Jr., a beefy double-time beat and chiming wall of guitar, and the kind of covertly brilliant chorus that REM used to manufacture out of thin air.
In total, the song comes clad in echoes of all your favourites, from the Clash to the Who. “I really wanted to start the record with something that had the best characteristics of the Manvils,” says vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Manville. “The psychedelia, the blues, screaming guitars, and big drums.”
It’s a decisive and muscular way to start a record, and with expectations this high, it oughta be. The Manvils’ 2006 debut Buried Love cemented the reputation of the Vancouver-based four-piece after barely a year of explosive live performances. In a city notorious for its self-loathing, the Manvils struck a rare chord, eventually achieving the unthinkable with a sold-out release party at one of the city’s most auspicious mid-sized venues for the 2007 EP Strange Disaster.
And the song “Strange Disaster” shows up again on The Manvils, in an altogether more confident and sinewy form. The advances made by the band in the last year are writ large in its flawless pulse and corrosive guitar work - due mainly to the introduction of drummer Jay Koenderman in late 2007 and a generally re-doubled work ethic on the part of everybody else. And Manville found a perfect foil in producer Ryan Dahle, who earlier was struck by the raw Manvil talent before finally bringing them home to Vancouver’s Factory and recRoom studios.
“There was no way around working your ass off on this record because of Ryan Dahle,” Manville states. “Practicing and songwriting every day, for eight months. We lived in this world where the only thing that mattered was the songs.”
Out of Dahle’s boot camp - songs were perfected, deconstructed, and built up all over again - comes the great leap forward of The Manvils, where the production is bright, tasteful, and loud enough to rattle all the right inner-ear bones, and the playing is textured and imaginative. Everybody is on point for The Manvils, starting with an implacable rhythm section that can sit in the pocket without ever leaning on the obvious, like in the swaggering 16ths of album opener “Good Luck Club”. Or they can go wide, with bassist Greg Buhr lacing yawning counter-melodies throughout “Hollow Hands”, and drummer Koenderman bringing the otherwise deliberate “Guillotine” to a boiling tumult of snare, toms, and violence.
“True Believers” brackets its lighter-than-air, Eagles-inspired choruses and quasi-Dylanesque poetics with a bruiser’s catalogue of anguished metallic sounds. By Manville’s own reckoning, “Substation” is “Smithsy”. “It’s very distinctive,” Manville declares. “That’s when you hear the Brit side of the band, and then it gets into a fight with the Americana voice.”
In the gorgeous “Riverside”, a keening guitar hook drifts in and out of the song, drenching atmosphere on Manville’s curious references to science magazines and skeletons. Underneath the enigma, it’s a love song to Mikey’s wife, and in its autumnal feel the closest thing to Canadiana that the songwriter has ever come up with. “This is an important record for us and there’s no more important person to me,” Manville asserts. “And every rock ‘n’ roll album has to have a great love song. That’s what I think.”
“The Stoker” offers heraldic guitar riffs, “la la la” choruses, and more sideways hooks, which Manville characterizes as “Byrds-meets-Motorhead-meets-Thin Lizzy-meets-the Clash”. It’s the upbeat yin to the minatory yang of album closer “Passport”, which sees Manville’s cohorts haul out the melodrama for his ominous rumination on trouble every day, piling out of an extraordinary record with a deliciously melodic psyche out.
It’s 35 minutes of deft, intelligent, passionate rock ‘n’ roll, and a triumph for everyone concerned.
“A bright energy exists in every corner of this record,” Manville says. “In every chorus, and every verse. Each time I hear it, still, it overwhelms me with how proud I am of these guys, and how dedicated Ryan was. They took these songs, that were written on acoustic guitar in the my living room, and they were transformed into something that I’m gonna be proud of for a very, very long time.”
“There is a good reason everyone is talking.”
The Georgia Straight.
“Electric! The new messiah of rock ‘n’ roll.”
Nerve Magazine.
“Manville is that rarest of singer / songwriters, one with an ineffable star quality and a refreshingly passionate approach to live performances.”
Exclaim!
“Comparisons to the Kings of Leon and The Strokes aren’t justified: The Manvils have stronger songwriting than the Kings of Leon and Mikey Manville’s gritty vocal delivery and stage antics make him a more compelling front man than the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas.”
North Shore News.
