On Oni Pond

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It may have been hard to decipher amid all the yelping and yearning of its last four LPs, but Man Man has been through a lot of lineup changes over the past 10 years. Which says a lot about why the band's tightest record yet also happens to be the only one that revolves around the band's longtime linchpins: drummer Christopher "Pow Pow" Powell and singer/keyboard-slammer Ryan "Honus Honus" Kattner. Here they play off each other's strengths—strangled Beefheart-isms, sucker-punched percussion, hooks that are weird and wooly yet ultimately quite wonderful—while keeping Kattner's track-attacking tantrums to a minimum. The pair emerges with a remarkably varied set of songs that distill its influences down to a decidedly strange brew. So while the shake, rattle, and wail of "Pink Wonton" is the Man Man "sound" personified, it's an outlier in a record that makes a point of stretching out stylistically, whether it's through rimshot dub rhythms ("King Shiv"), a straightfaced guitar solo ("Pyramids"), or a reverb-padded ukulele ("Deep Cover"). Here's hoping Powell and Kattner can keep the good ship Man Man stable from this point on.

via Apple Music

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