SIX
by
MANSUN
Constantly referred to as the ever-changing men of music, Mansun really haven't
altered as much as everyone would have you believe. Sure, early days of stripping vicars and
dark Mavises showed a certain naivety and lack of confidence compounded with an unfortunate Britpop influence; but the epic stellar compositions running through
Paul Draper's mind like a waterfall have always been there, hinted at by early
b-sides and immortal tracks like "Wide Open Space". Now, this LP full of shimmering introspective prog rock works is a natural evolution - and a welcome
one. (However, I make no such
excuses for their pissed-in-a-fancy-dress-shop costume changes...)
Hardly one song on the LP is simple, opener "Six" being a good example. Starting off with an eerily spellbinding sequence punctuated by ghostly keyboards, it begins conventionally enough. Then, the middle section of the 7-minute opus darts off with the guitars blazing on a different tune and tangent, before running out of breath and lapsing into a dreamier and more sedate pace. Then, recovered, it goes racing off again out of sight, leaving a completely different melody to cope with fading-out duties. And oddly enough, it works - the best multi-faceted track to pop its head above the three-minute thrash barricades since "Paranoid Android".
Other songs take this model and wrap themselves around it too. "Shotgun" starts off punk rock then almost sings itself to sleep with a floating and drawn-out second half, whereas others such as "Cancer" seem to go on all night, directions jutting out seemingly at random. All the while however - even if the end result is a little bit unsatisfying - the parts that make up the whole are well-done and interesting at worst; pricklingly spiky and/or smokily mellow at best.
Others, whilst maintaining the same structure throughout, are just as startlingly original and off-the-wall. "Fall Out" is the most obvious example of this, a gentle duel between Mansun's guitar gymnastics and an orchestrated passage from The Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairy, no less. Willingness to experiment and progress such as this, can only be praised (even though, as here, the result veers dangerously close to pretentious parody - witness the CD cover for even more evidence of this). The same is true of the LP's structure, divided as it is into two parts, complete with interlude. How much more pretentiously prog can you get? "Witness To A Murder (Part Two)" is the answer, a poem narrated by top thesp luvvie and ex-Dr Who Tom Baker, over a musical backing of harpsichord and an operatic duet. No, really.
Not all tracks on "Six" are as ambitious in scope, or as manically over the top in execution. "Negative" is straightforward and top-quality guitar heroics, whilst "Inverse Midas" is a lullaby sung by angels who grew up listening to Duran Duran. "Anti-Everything" is The Beatles "Nowhere Man" in drag, and "Serotonin" is a blast of New Wave/New Romanticism, both of which clock in at less than 3 minutes.
The singles are at the end, both "Legacy" and "Being A Girl" fitting in contextually perfectly, the former's doomed romanticism slotting into the tone like a lego brick, whilst the latter's extension into a 7-plus minute epic seeming the most natural way to end an LP such as this.
"Six" is a funny beast. At turns refreshingly original, at others echoing periods of music and bands best forgotten ("Television" in particular marrying the undesirable sounds of Floyd and Duran Duran together to less than enthralling effect), it is nevertheless always puffed up with ambition, vision and unashamed pretention. Standing to attention and demanding that you listen - whether you love it or hate it matters not a jot to "Six". You do get the impression that the record would have benefitted from a bit tighter creative control however, but as it stands, the record is testament to a band unafraid to experiment and unwilling to stand still. Although it's been done before, it's not been done for a while, and seldom to this degree of quality - so long as Mansun manage to stray away in future from triple concept LPs named after characters from Tolkein novels, we'll be alright.
