Ah yes, this year’s Harlem Shake, the #Mannequin Challenge, has taken the seven kingdoms of Social Media by storm
Here is my simple Mannequin Challenge to you:
give Mannequin Pussy’s fantastic new album Romantic a listen.
Romantic is a mix of stormy angst and sunny post-punk wadded up into a ball and fired out of a t-shirt gun straight into your stupid unsuspecting face.
Album opener Kiss exploded out of my Discover Weekly list like a freshly charged Samsung Note-7 dipped in gasoline.
76 seconds later, the album completely reverses poles with the title-track Romantic; a slow-burner coming in at a meager two and a half minutes. It is a sweet punk ballad. Singer Marisa Dabice sends mixed signals: crooning with tongue in cheek, “..I get along with everyone I meet…. I’m so sweet” She later admits on Denial, “At night sometimes my thoughts collide. My body shakes. I feel so separated from what I thought I’d be and what I am.” Like I said, mixed signals.
This stylistic see-saw from high speed thrashing to bashful ballads continues throughout Romantic. For example, Ten is a very fast paced thrasher immediately followed by Emotional High, easily one of the slower, sunnier tracks. Emotional High almost nails that care-free west coast vibe you might hear on a Best Coast Album.
Pledge, easily my favorite track, starts with a blissed out 90’s riff that reminds me of Junkie man from Rancid’s famous Out Come the Wolves, one of my favorite punk albums of all time. As evidenced on this track, slow the tempo down a tad, and Mannequin P sounds much more less like a post-punk band and more like a Dream pop, like recent sensations Beach House.
On Denial, Dabice mixes the frantic tones of the odd numbered tracks with the sweeter poppier vibes of the earlier tracks. Denial is straight 90’s post-punk, Dabice sings along “I’m been feeling lately I need to be alone, you’d been thinking too much that you need to atone. All these strangers adore me but put me on a shelf.”
At her trashiest, Marissa Dabice reminds me of the always entertaining Jemina Pearl, of the now possibly defunct Be Your Own Pet.
At her sweetest, Dabice echos dare I utter her name, .”She-who-shall-not-be-found-on-Spotify”Taylor Swift? Its not much of a stretch. Hey, Steven’s love-note shoestring lyrics could have been pulled straight off of Swifty’s 1989.
Embrace the last of this crisp fall air with yet another great pop-punk album. Bad vibes, just shake them off… er…. and trust me on the Mannequin Challenge,
….like the Harlem Shake and the Ice Buckets, it too shall pass.
Favorite Tracks: Pledge, Denial
Tones OF HOME 