There’s a lot to like and a lot to lump within Ascenseur Ouvert!, The Kingsbury Manx’ fifth full-length album. As a fey wild card of sorts in the indie community, the Manx don’t mind packing irk-fuls of annoyances and differing styles of soft-rock into their albums, and like the last few LPs before it, Ascenseur takes its sweet time to get crankin’. Not until the head-first thrust of “Well, Whatever” -- at track four -- do things charge up, its beautiful guitar breaks and haunting chords hearkening back to the best this North Carolina band has to offer.
Then we’re back where we started with “If You’re on the Mend, I’m on the Move,” a dry, cruddy track that makes me wonder how much was sacrificed when vocalist/guitarist Kenneth Stephenson and Scott Myers (bass and keys) were manx’d from the lineup before the underwhelming The Fast Rise and Fall of the South. Actually, I’m not really wondering much; I think it’s obvious something was lost when the group fragmented.
And yet hope still blooms on Ascenseur, suggesting that with time this new ensemble could mend into a strong unit. The evidence is in tracks like “These Three Things,” which channels older, pastoral Manx tunes to scenic effect (though the cheap distortion at the end doesn’t fit), and “Galloping Ghosts,” another back-in-the-day slo-mo Kingsbury signature song with a sleepy resolve and a passionate voice.
I’ve always been weary of reviews that seem to long for the past more than look to the future. It’s easy to slag every album a band creates after its opus has passed into memory. However, in the case of The Kingsbury Manx, I’m not really sure if they’ve made their masterpiece. And, sadly, at this point I really don’t see the need to attach a ‘yet’ to the end of the preceding sentence -- I find it quite possible they’ve given us the best they can give us. That said, there’s enough growth here to keep me interested long into the future, so don’t turn out the lights on the Manx just yet.
1. Walk on Water
2. Over the Oeuvre
3. Black and Tan
4. Well, Whatever
5. If You're on the Mend, I'm on the Move
6. Crest
7. These Three Things
8. Minos Maze
9. Galloping Ghosts
10. Clean Break
11. Shoulder Stories
12. The Whip and the World
13. Indian Isle
14. George Closing
More about: The Kingsbury Manx
