Artist: Man Zero
Label: Guranje S Litice
Release: 2009
Length: 56:47
Rating: 4/5
Bands like Man Zero are rare. They’re musical experimenters, building instrumental music. The motifs are crafted but not complex, and there are lots of them. The songs are stretched out, and the motifs give way to plenty of repetition. Within those repetitions the band uses the space to stack up layer after layer of sonic collage, a trick that stirs up the dynamic ebb and flow of the album’s songs. Getting the picture yet? You could call it progressive, but since that word gets “abused” so often, post rock probably captures the point of Man Zero’s musical character and spirit best.
Their music has a hint of hypnosis, but it never gets pushy through psychedelia, which is typical of their countrymen Seven That Spells, another seriously interesting bunch of experimenters. Instead it just slides pleasantly into your ears from the very first encounter with Man Zero. The opener Changing Places feels like the band testing the ground for a landing with their interstellar craft of witty musical trial and error. It lazily piles up collage upon collage, leaning mostly on pronounced “reverb” and “stereo chorus” guitar effects, and only occasionally dosing the meditative side of the atmosphere with a few shot-off riffs of higher noise intensity. Then 40 Acres And A Mule wakes you from the album’s dreamy overture. Here a melodically well-used riff motif comes to the fore, set against a curtain of synthesizers on one side and, on the other, a tense, thick rumble, I’d even say a downright tearing sound, from the bass guitar. This is the first confirmation that Man Zero are a trio who know exactly what they want, what they’re doing and what they’re after. The rich washes of the massive sound the song floats on dig under your skin in an instant and carry the listener to the edge of transcendental drifting, or even further if you know how to let go.
Man Zero, if we can loosely pin the “post rockers” label on them, keep the album flowing in a constantly shifting, dynamic way with a “grooved-up”, exploratory rhythm section. The drums keep probing in compact motifs and clear a path for a rich arsenal of improvised inserts, which keeps the listener awake even in moments when individual songs get more rigid in their motifs.
The guitar often goes for a totally clean, organic sound, or just half distortion, and of course with special effects (one option is several amps chained in a row, or the already mentioned “tuned-up” “reverb” and “stereo chorus” effects) it successfully spreads the sound across the full spectrum, which forms an important element of the band’s sonic picture. Of course the trio also has to rely on delay effects and on memorizing individual motifs. Especially when we remember that Man Zero have to be able to reproduce their studio achievement on stage. That’s beyond dispute.
This liveliness and sonic variety goes for the other two building blocks too. The rhythm section, that is. Both are captured in a great natural sound that feels alive and tight, and the production masterfully emphasizes the contrasts between the individual instrumental components, which is really the most important thing about the whole album. It simply sounds excellent. Leaving the vocals aside, the guys at times get fully close (I’m sure completely unintentionally) to the German progressive rock band Sieges Even, both in the instrumentation and the production (check the excerpts from Ennuyeux Comme La Pluie, The Life You Wanted, The Echo Of My Cowboy Boots). The Life You Wanted closes out with a final “crescendo”, which means the band knows how to thread the needle and dodge the potential boredom that repeated motifs can cause. So from circle to circle the “rumble” of the repetitions gets more intense, the atmosphere builds as a result, and so do the emphasized feelings and the contrasting intensity across the stacking of sonic layers
Despite the feeling the listener gets that a given song could fall into total motif fragmentation, that never happens on the album. And that’s a big plus, because it keeps the album hugely compelling the whole way through, keeping the listener on the edge of their seat wondering what will happen next on the record. So the element of unpredictability is clearly front and center on “Telemark”, while the band manages to develop the thing that’s surely most important to them. Vivid, cerebral atmosphere! That works triumphantly especially in the mellow Nods Of Approval, which hits the most effective contrasting washes, where atmospheric turns and melodic motif polish shake hands masterfully. This song even adds the sound of a vocoder, which stirs the whole thing up even more. This track somehow carries on the energy of 40 Acress And A Mule. The album’s sixth track, Prošlost, is an absolute departure for the record, leaning in its sound and motifs, at least at the start, on elements of eighties post punk or the stoned haze of shoegaze from the smoky British underground clubs deep in the eighties. On top of that, there’s even a sliver of Tool-style energy, again mainly thanks to the production, which masterfully modernizes the thick riff groove contrast between guitar and bass. But the feeling that Jesus And Mary Chain have been reborn in a Tool reincarnation only shows up now and then, and works as a great seasoning on the album. The thing remains thoroughly Man Zero through and through.
If we’ve now analyzed the album piece by piece, the closing Echo Of My Cowboy Boots is really the right cross-section of the point of Man Zero’s music in one go. Here the band shows in the wittiest way, by following free musical figures, that they don’t want to and won’t overcomplicate things, even though they achieve exactly that through greater complexity and motif variety. The unpredictability of sudden mood swings and the drive to hold onto a red thread of more compact motifs come across here at their most successful on the album. Even the inclusion of a trumpet is thrilling, adding a psychedelic veil to the track and, for a fleeting moment, reviving the unforgettable genius of Miles Davis. Evidently the last track is made up of two parts, since a whole 4-minute pause separates them, which is perhaps not the most successful idea on the album. But that was the band’s wish, and it’s totally logical given the clear leap in expression between the two halves of the song.
With their debut “Telemark”, Man Zero already prove they’re a seriously witty, intelligent band, with an innate feel for musical layering, for not limiting themselves, and for experimenting and exploring new musical dimensions. All this puts Man Zero on a special, clearly recognizable spot on the rock horizon and gives them all the right cues for further quality upgrades and growth.
The music is set up in such a way that it’s not hard to imagine them adding various sonic loops, programming, extra percussion, even orchestral (string, wind) arrangements down the line. So this band’s development could go in several directions. They are progressive, meaning forward-moving, in every sense, and in that respect they’re surely an avant-garde name for the region from the Alps to Lake Ohrid, one that will be able to thrill and surprise with their output in the future.
Line-up
Tomislav Biškup – guitar
Elvis Šimunić – bass guitar
Igor Domjan – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Hrvoje Nikšić – synthesizers, vocoder
Igor Pavlica – trumpet on track no. 7
Production
Carl Saff
Tracklist
1. Changing Places
2. 40 Acres And A Mule
3. Ennuyeux Comme La Pluie
4. The Life You Wanted
5. Nods Of Approval
6. Prošlost
7. Echo Of My Cowboys Boots
