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THE FAST RISE AND FALL OF THE SOUTH
YEP-ROC
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It was all but impossible to determine the provenance of the Kingsbury Manx from their homonymous 2000 debut. Information as to the members' names, who played what, or even how many blokes were in the band was nowhere to be found on the CD or in the liner notes, and their faces weren’t hiding in the cover painting of a hillside house chiseled under a diamond-cut sky. The name sounded British Isles, their pastoral chamber pop alluded to Glasgow, perhaps, or a moonlighting Pernice Brother. But four dudes from Chapel Hill, North Carolina? Indeed. On this the foursome’s third album, the Manx have provided pics of themselves. But their sound hasn’t changed. The opening piano-and-organ-laced waltz, "Harness and Wheel," sounds closer to the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society than anything from Superchunk. The burble of "What a Shame" and guitarist Bill Taylor’s winsome tenor evoke Ray Davies strolling through a summer country fair daydreaming about the Left Banke. Produced by Wilco’s Mike Jorgensen, who applies a less-is-more, Sea and Cake–ish organic-electro sheen similar to the one favored by his own band these days, Rise and Fall is a quietly lithe work that never needs to reach or raise its voice. It’s all soft-focus crescendi and crushed-velvet climaxes. The Kingsbury Manx + the Standard + Appletown Gun Shop | T.T. the Bear’s, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge | Nov 6 | 617.492.BEAR.
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