Based on 2004’s The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face CD, it’s hard to be sure if the insanity of Man Man is entirely organic, but the wackiness here is of a fairly high grade regardless. The band presents an entertainingly mixed bag of seeming randomness, veering from caveman rhythm breakdown to pop epiphany to elegiac lyricism and back around the horn with a graceful, endearing amateurism. For just two instances, “Man Who Make You Sick” recalls the calculated randomness of mid-’90s Boredoms, while “Werewolf” achieves a warped ’50s jukebox sound. God only knows how all this is gonna translate live, but I’d be willing to wager it’ll be verrry interesting.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2005.