Manray ‎– Tournament LP

Manray ‎– Tournament LP

Some of you may be familiar with Athens, Ga s Manray, some of you may not. But there is one thing for sure, once you do see them you WILL remember the band s louder than life, bombastic marriage of hard-core, math-rock and metal once your in it s presence. Picture ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead jamming with The Refused and Every Time I Die mixed with Mastodon-esque expansiveness and you ll be on the right track. The album opens with The Geronimo Trilogy (Fort Sill/Casa Grande/Skeleton Canyon) which clocks in at the almost 8-minute mark, with vocals only emerging only near the half-way point. This song does a good job of presenting us with an accurate portrayal of the rest of the album, as the album as a whole never loses it s punch but sometimes just take longer to warm up the oven so to speak. It s all about build-up and pay-off throughout these nine tracks and there are roughly two types of different songs on the albums, the slow-burn-to-eventual-face-melters (Gordon Lamborghini/Bars Stripes) or the immediate-face-melters (Zero Sum Situation/Burning Bridges), so it s basically a pick your poison type situation. The band bobs, weaves, jams and shreds over the course of the disc, so if you re looking for a balanced modern rock album with a well-placed ballad for a moment of fresh air you re going to be S.O.L. However if you re looking for something to turn up REALLY loud and annoy your roommates and neighbors with (like I am currently doing now) then you may have found your new favorite album. - We Are The Upstate