| CD REVIEW Manimal |
 |
|
Band: Manimal Gothenburg based Manimal has been around since 2001, founded by the instrumental trio of guitarist Henrik Stenroos, bassist Pether Mentzer, and his brother Richard on the drums. When they came across singer Samuel Nyman, they liked his high pitch vocals só much, they adapted their style to it! Over the years, Manimal has issued three “official” demos (2002’s 5-track Demo 2002, 2005’s 5-track Human Nature – which for some reason I felt I’d come across – and 2006’s 2-track Demo 2006), which all got the band positive response from both media and fans. It offered the band a chance to perform at such high-profile events as Sweden Rock and Metaltown, and numerous gigs as supporting act for the likes of Mustach, Entombed, The Poodles, Circus Maximus, and many more. By 2008, the band felt ready to make their first full-length release and, because of their high standards concerning the sound, spent most of the rest of the year recording it with the aid of producer Tobias Lindell (known among other from his work with Mustach). In January 2009, the band signed a deal with Swedish music distributor Border Music, who released the album in Sweden on February 25. the band’s fans rewarded the excellent work by buying it in such numbers that it shot to the #36 position in the charts. Evidently, this attracted the attention of the music bizz outside Sweden, and eventually the band signed a deal for an international release of the album with through Germany’s AFM Records in early May! Not surprising the label fell for this band, as the metal they play may be hard and sharp, but also melodic at all times, and with a slight touch of Progressive! Nyman’s voice is simply soaring, and must be the envy of many! Although there’s no credits for ‘em, a number of the 9 songs have keyboard additions (6 out of the 9, in fact, and in the case of the album’s title track, the keyboard is also in piano mode)…album closer “The Life We Lived” even has some cello (thàt, or the keyboards are played such as to sound like a cello). Looking at the material, we see that the guys only used sóme of their older tracks for this album: off the first demo you get “Ordinary Man”, off the second demo there’s “Human Nature”, and eventually there’s both songs off demo 3! But móst of the album (which has a total length of just under 39 minutes) consists of new material. At myspace.com/manimalsweden (there’s also a French Death/Thrash band by that name which released two albums to date…and then Manimal was also an American Hardcore band in the mid ‘80s) you can find a full-length version of the album title track and a near 10-minute medley of the album, enough to either get you hooked, or disgusted for the rest of your life. Then again, I can only surmise that what you’ve read so far was to your liking…or you wouldn’t have made the trouble to continue, right? Personally, I like very, véry much, but not enough yet to give the album a nomination for my year-lists! 95/100 Tony. |