Compounding once and future Iceberg Deke Leonard with two Help Yourselfers and the minimum quota of Williamses and Joneses, this is the best record to come out of San Francisco in quite a while, pretty impressive for a band that never saw the Golden Gate till after the thing was released. The chemistry's right, that's all--Leonard's eccentric dissonances and gullet-model wah-wah are sweetened by the Help Yourselfers and rolled with a steady rock by Williams and Jones. Unphilosophical but trenchant, short on tunes but chocked with riffs. B+ -- R. ChristgauMan is a Welsh-based band with its heart in San Francisco specifically, in the elongated and textured music of Quicksilver and the early Dead. Earlier versions of Man were content to put the bulk of their energies into extended live performances, rarely concerning themselves with transferring their work to the recording medium; their albums have generally seemed cold and remote. But the current band (a kind of Welsh all-star unit, with two members remaining from the last edition joined by former Man vocalist and more recently solo artist Deke Leonard and by a pair from the disbanded Help Yourself) seems more interested in making good records than in jamming into the dawn. Rhinos, Winos & Lunatics has more tracks--six--than most Man albums, and each has been carefully structured. The California-style hazy openness is still evident, but it's been built into songs rather than appearing as the end product of improvisation.
Leonard, a leather-voiced and leather-coated rocker; longtime member Micky Jones, still thoroughly psychedelicized; ex-Help Yourself leader Malcolm Morley, who's cultivated a refined Neil Young sound--all are versatile, daring musicians with complementary skills and, evidently, lots of rapport. The songs, all collaborative efforts, stay sufficiently close to pop conventions in a formal sense to make them accessible, but enigmatic lyrics, and lots of wry musical twists and shifts distinguish the work. In its conscientious avoidance of the obvious mood or transition, the band has become a sort of British Steely Dan.
There's tremendous compressed energy in 'Taking the Easy Way Out Again', an up-to-date story of unrequited love that easily could have been on Leonard's Iceberg LP, and on 'Four Day Louise', the repeated rock & roll riff which recalls the Chuck Berry archetype only in its high voltage. 'Kerosene' contains instrumental elaboration marked by fluidity and momentum. 'The Thunder and Lightning Kid' and the album's eight-and-a-half-minute 'Scotch Corner' generate tension by juxtaposing pretty, expansive melodies with ironic lyrics. The latter track is further intensified by simultaneous stratospheric guitar solos from Leonard and Jones. Guitar work is superb throughout the album. It may have an old name, but with Leonard and Morley involved, this Man is a brand new band. -- Bud Scoppa, RS
review
by Paul CollinsAn excellent set of material energized by the return of the pleasingly abrasive vocals of Deke Leonard; it charted nearly as well as Back Into the Future, and its tighter composition means that in many ways it's held up better over the years. The second half may be the band's artistic high point -- bookended by the pomp-wah instrumentals, "Intro" and "Exit," it contains the unusually sultry "Kerosene" and the epic "Scotch Corner," which builds up from rattling snare and picked guitar verses to beautiful choruses of harmonized vocals.
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