Fuzz Manta

Vortex Memplex

Written by: BV on 09/12/2012 17:42:07

Danish hard rockers Fuzz Manta are back with their third album, and they have vastly improved since their previous outing “Opus II”, which was, in all fairness, a cool album on its own. As I understand, the band apparently recorded the entirety of this album in their rehearsal space, in favour of the usual choice of doing it in a recording studio. The rehearsal space atmosphere is quite apparent on the album, as some of the tracks seem to have a more jam-like, experimental edge to them, than the songs on their previous album.

The album starts off with mellow acoustic guitar on the track “And So She Speaks”, before suddenly turning seriously heavy with distorted guitar parts, pounding drums and bass, and some very, very powerful vocals that seem to have that “in your face” attitude all over. This track generally sets the tone for the rest of the album, as Fuzz Manta slowly but steadily rocks on with massive riffs and somewhat psychedelic lyrics. About halfway through the album though, the atmosphere changes radically to a less heavy but way more psychedelic vibe with the track “Vertigo” – which in turn reminds me quite a lot of Robin Trowers “Bridge of Sighs”, both in terms of atmosphere and guitar sound, but also in the general form of the song. It’s fine by me though, as I am a huge Robin Trower fan and I think it’s cool to hear that his guitar-sound is still a source of inspiration.

The album ends with the song ”Tørke incl. Marmelade” which is a whopping 30:46 minutes long. This song starts off really nicely with the drums leading in, followed shortly thereafter by the guitar, immediately adding a psychedelic vibe to the mix. After the first 8 minutes of this psychedelic jam-track, I become confused as the band has chosen to squeeze in just about 3 minutes of silence before the track is resumed in a slightly more free form, thus continuing the jam atmosphere. When I finally reach the end of the album, I can’t help but feel that the album as whole is strongly hindered by the closing track, which is actually a shame as the remaining five tracks are quite good. The jam track at the end of the album might be really cool in a live situation, (as a matter of fact, I don’t doubt that at all) but I really don’t think it does the album any good as it takes up space that could have been used on other tracks that might have fit the album better.

To sum up, I really dig Fuzz Manta and it is nice to hear a band that isn’t afraid to space out, both live and on record. But in some cases it is better to shorten the jam tracks, or leave them out completely, which I really think the album would have benefitted from.

7

Download: And So She Speaks, Vertigo, Electric Heat
For The Fans Of: Deep Purple, Robin Trower, Siena Root, Black Mountain
Listen: facebook.com

Release Date 10.06.12
Kozmik Artifactz

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