One record at a time: 253. Mansun - Attack of the Grey Lantern

I bought the CD of this album back in 1998 as a girl I was fond of said she liked it and I somehow thought it might bring me closer to knowing her. As it turned out, the girl and the album were equally enigmatic and I don't think I ever fully understood either. Whilst I can try to decipher the album today, the girl unfortunately is long gone. For this post I will be playing the 2018 purple vinyl which both looks and sounds good (just like girl in question), but before we become too over-sentimental, let's get to the music. 

The opening strings of "The Chad Who Loved Me" are as mesmerising as they are beautiful but the mood is disrupted by the band who come crashing in telling us we've, "got a gob on". All very weird. Entertaining, but definitely weird.

There's more evidence that this isn't a typical rock album with the TR-909 beats at the start of second track "Mansun's Only Love Song". Whilst the band once again begin to dominate the sound of the track, you can hear synths and scratches trying to poke through the cacophony of guitar and acoustic drums.

"Taxlosss" begins with an interesting synth sound but the band soon reduce it to a Beatles-esque weird-out. It's almost as if the band are divided over how the record should sound and we lurch between electronic tinged pop and Britpop as a result. You also feel the drummer was determined no drum machine was going to take his place as each electronic beat last no longer than about 5 seconds.

When I said I bought this record because of a girl I wasn't lying, but equally I was aware of the magnificent "Wide Open Space" already, so I knew my purchase would contain at least one song I liked. The melody and Paul's vocal on this song are amazing and it may be wrong of me to say it, but the album version is better than the much lauded Perfecto Mix that seemed to get quite a lot of airtime back in the day.

The Mansun Weird-o-meter™ gets turned up to eleven for "Stripped Vicar" which illustrates the moral conundrum one faces when contemplating reporting a clergyman for wearing plastic trousers. "Disgusting" is the first song I don't like as the EQ on Paul's vocal in the verse is awful and detracts from the brilliant chorus. There's a flash of Britpoop with the trio "She Makes Me Bleed", "Naked Twister" and "Egg Shaped Fred" which are all pretty disappointing. The final track "Dark Mavis" features a good string arrangement but it probably doesn't do enough to deserve such lavish treatment. 2/5