Had no idea that Roger Manning had a new album!
Catnip Dynamite !
The ex-Jellyfish/Imperial Drag keyboard guy/instrumentalist to the stars (Morrissey, eg) has this pup out in Japan, and guess what? It's not bad!
Opener "The Quickening" takes a standard-issue Cheap Trick-y descending chorus and tarts it up til it's fresh; "Living in End Times" makes the apocalypse upbeat...yes, so far, quite good! Then, alas, there are also the unfun, drumless nearly-eight minute prog epic "Survival Machine," which seems to have had 1985-era Neil Peart in to guest-lyricize ("Oppenheimer's refugees/the greatest minds that science/could convene [yes, really!]"), and Manning's serious over-reliance on too-cute folksy pronouns like "darlin' " and overall Sha Na Na-ness.
Still, worth several spins. It's odd how Manning keeps pluggin' [sorry, it's catchin' -dammit!] along while Andy Sturmer is probably sitting at the top of some mist-enshrouded mountain in Japan, growing a Ric Rubin beard and spinning never-to-be-heard-in-the-West J-pop gold like a Cali- Rumplestiltskin.
If ever the world needed another reunion, it would be Jellyfish.
Catnip Dynamite !
The ex-Jellyfish/Imperial Drag keyboard guy/instrumentalist to the stars (Morrissey, eg) has this pup out in Japan, and guess what? It's not bad!
Opener "The Quickening" takes a standard-issue Cheap Trick-y descending chorus and tarts it up til it's fresh; "Living in End Times" makes the apocalypse upbeat...yes, so far, quite good! Then, alas, there are also the unfun, drumless nearly-eight minute prog epic "Survival Machine," which seems to have had 1985-era Neil Peart in to guest-lyricize ("Oppenheimer's refugees/the greatest minds that science/could convene [yes, really!]"), and Manning's serious over-reliance on too-cute folksy pronouns like "darlin' " and overall Sha Na Na-ness.
Still, worth several spins. It's odd how Manning keeps pluggin' [sorry, it's catchin' -dammit!] along while Andy Sturmer is probably sitting at the top of some mist-enshrouded mountain in Japan, growing a Ric Rubin beard and spinning never-to-be-heard-in-the-West J-pop gold like a Cali- Rumplestiltskin.
If ever the world needed another reunion, it would be Jellyfish.
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