Manticore

Shovels & Rope

Released on 18-02-2022 by Dualtone Music Group
Main artists: Shovels & Rope
Genre: Alternative en Indie

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Manticore is a doorbusting refresh for South Carolina's Shovels & Rope, and one of the best relationship records in a long time. No one else is making music like Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent: Alt-country, pop, gothic folk, Americana—none of the labels quite fit, and it's a thrill. The married pair's interplay—vocally, musically, and physically on stage—has always been the spark of Shovels & Rope, and at times Manticore reaches Richard and Linda Thompson levels of intimacy. "The Show," they have said, "was finished in the early months of the pandemic—deep enough into the quarantine that we had had time to do some serious self-reflection, reckon with our mortality, morality and carnality, and identify some of the walls that needed to come down between us." That song's raw, rough verses explore what happens when the world goes black for a performing couple ("When the world was on fire, there were days I couldn't make it along/ But for the song"), before breaking into a glam strut of a chorus: "I'm taking off my show tonight/ Turn off the flash, the neon sign." It's followed up by Hearst wrestling with the complications of motherhood and marriage on "Collateral Damage," brilliantly channeling the gruff beauty of Bonnie Tyler. "Bleed Me," about the couple's love for their two children, is another stunner. It starts off with minor key piano, immediately diving into all-consuming devotion: "From the back of my mind to the tip of my spine ... I will remain/ Yours to drain." The song rises to atmospheric heights of ecstasy as they plead "Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeed me," sounding absolutely spent by the end. The sad-pretty ballad "Divide & Conquer" is equally gothic, and devastating in its casual brutality: "Shut you out cause you wouldn't shut up/ Cut me down till I couldn't get up ... Can you still see me or are we just a myth/ What once moved like water became a monolith." Swooner "The Human Race" starts off defeated by the changes of the pandemic world ("Shall we get it over with and take in the temple?") before deciding to make the most of whatever time we have left. It's not all personal, though. Knockout "Domino" is edgy rockabilly meets modern indie rock, told in the voice of James Dean from the afterlife—both narrating his own car-crash death and observing his continued hold on celebrity culture. "I'm DOA, give me the lasso/ Guess they'll get Paul Newman to play Rocky Graziano," go the clever lyrics, with Trent and Hearst both nailing the '50s rebel style. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

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Manticore

Shovels & Rope

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