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Issue #91
Nov. ‘06
Brothers and
Sisters,
I believe that music is the love of the world,
That music was bestowed upon us to express our pain, sorrow, aches,
wants and needs, our
insecurities, disappointments and failures. That it is also to cure our
ills, give life to
our joys, goals, and accomplishments, to revel our triumphs and glory.
It is there to
provide us with an outward expression and communicable emotion of life
in all its facets.
So I ask you; What
do you
ask of your musical gods?
If you ask for
divine
intervention, then say, Amen!
If you ask for redemption, then say, Hallelujah!
But, if you ask for Deliverance,
then say, The Manchurians!
Yes the new CD, Deliverance,
by The Manchurians has the power to
deliver us
from life’s ills with a gospel of Chicago
style Rhythm and Blues that just explodes
out of the gates with what has to be the best opening track these ears
have ever heard.
The title track is too powerful for mere words; the instruments stake
their own claim
right out of the box. A Gospel blues delivered with the fury and
conviction that drove the
early punk movement, married to the solid mid ‘60s Blue
Cheer/Vanilla Fudge/Cream
style blues, while attacking with Led Zeppelin bombast and holding
close such emissaries
as Junior Wells, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson.
“You
know I’m ready /
You know I’m bound / Just lift me up / to a higher ground”
Roger
C. Reale’s
gravel vocals transform this self-described, “white boy from
the suburbs”, into
a hard core, smoke-ravaged, whiskey-fueled, blues man, who lays down a
mean bass to Mat Reale’s
John Bonham worthy drums. Mike Roth
and Dean Falcone’s guitar
work belong on the
blues club stages paired with Bob Orsi’s
unmatchable Harmonica work. There just isn’t a modern day
working R&B band that
can justifiably play this style music with the conviction and pride
that The Manchurians display
throughout this 11 track
album of juke-jumping, shoulder-shaking, hip-thrusting, down-n-dirty,
all out good time,
party pleasing, olde time Rock-n-Roll.
Listen to the Bo
Diddley
beat of Brutal Love,
it’s the Banger of the bunch, played with more sheer power
than I’ve ever heard;
pure House Shaking, Blow me down power! Play It LOUD! Picture Led
Zeppelin in a Chicago
Blues bar in 1958 playing straight out Bo Diddley beat blues
accompanied by a harp player
that has the magnitude to carry the band, just as the band carries the
harp. Hip-banging
excitement right from Roger’s opening “I
got sssssuuumthin’
ta……….tell ya,”
this is a Jamfest
spectacular. Include that, with that the riding-the-rails boogie woogie
of Scared Rabbit
(think Grateful Dead by way of The Band), the full gallop attack of Crawlin’ In
The Dark, complete with a middle bridge Jam of
awesome proportion, and the
honky-tonk, swamp boogie of Desperate
Hours (with Mike Roth on lead
vocals), and if your not dancing on the furniture drenched in a sex
starved sweat, then
you must be dead.
A sex starved
sweat? Yes,
because just as traditional R&B lays
its heart out with heartbreak, it’s usually the sex that
gives the genre it’s
“what-to-for.” And The
Manchurians
deliver with the passion and glory of all their ancestors. Starting
with Come See Me,
a pure manic mating ritual that smacks of Southern hospitality and
frankness, this dance
floor provoking hook-up-no-matter-what statement lays the groundwork
for the sex-fueled
provisions of the genre. Listen
Everybody borrows the funked-up,
stripped down back beat of The Pretenders, My City Was Gone, and
delivers Rhythm and Blues
as the ultimate foreplay. Again, using the sexiness of down home
Southern hospitality, the
raw backing vocals of the chorus “Everybody’s
gotta have somebody / Everybody’s gotta find somebody /
Everybody’s gotta want
somebody / Everybody’s gotta need somebody,”
make us want to “Woo Hoo”
and do the horizontal bop. I Can Tell
gives us another dance floor foreplay bop of a preening cock in the hen
house, male ego,
strut your stuff ignorance that even with the admittance “I can tell / I can tell / I know you
don’t love me
no more,” he’s still gonna work his way
back into her pants. Do you know
what? With the way The Manchurians
play it, you
know he can and will succeed.
To make Deliverance
a
complete R&B album, The Manchurians
also
provide several asides to keep our listening (and dancing) pleasure in
perspective; Curse
of Love
has a dangerous feel that lends an edge to this nitty-gritty diatribute
of the harder side
of heartbreak. The utilization of the guitar to sing the catastrophic
consequences of the
greatest emotion known to man – Love, or more to the point,
the lack of, and/or the
rejection of Love – is stirring in more ways than can be
described. Something
To
Gain, a heartfelt ballad, finds Roger singing a
duet with guest vocalist Shellye Valauskas
that can be paralleled to that
of Warren Zevon & Bonnie Rait fronting The Rolling Thunder
Revue. Guest Violinist Ben Warner Kugielsky
(from Base 2) adds a touch of
eloquence as he tempers
the rhythm of (fellow Base 2 member) Mat Reale’s well
disciplined drumming (holding
steady and reserved, it’s the drums touch that make this
ballad work, whereas most
would’ve pushed with a bit of overkill, and lost the song
entirely). Finally, Deliverance
closes with Spy vs.
Spy,
a raunchy run through Tex-Mex surf. As solid and as distinguished as
that of Bond, James
Bond, 007 danger, The Manchurians take beach blanket bingo to the
darker, down-n-dirty
side of surf, and we’re loving it – Go Daddy-O!
Deliver Me!
Do you ask your
musical
gods for Deliverance?
Then say, The
Manchurians.
The Manchurians
- Deliverance
is available now for: $9.98 + s/h*
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