MRmr_2014

Swedish band MANNY RIBERA was formed in 2010, and one of their stated goals is “playing the best god damned rock there is and letting everybody join the ride.” They released their self-titled debut album in 2014 through Swedish label Transubstans Records.

This Swedish foursome comes across as a slightly odd constellation. These guys know their rock and their hard rock fairly well, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if some of them knew a bit about punk as well. What sets them apart from many others is that they actually seek to combine the myriad influences each member brings to the band. A claim made by many but whose actual execution is rather more rare than the aforementioned claims of doing just that.

At best this works pretty well in this case. The four songs opening this album in particular are vibrant, tight and effective blends of various kinds and degrees of rock and hard rock, touching base with grunge, 70’s US hard rock, vintage doom metal and more modern stoner rock along the way. Most impressive with the doom metal flavored Make Sure Not to Fall as far as I’m concerned, with a clever and effective blend of dark toned guitar riffs and organ as key features. Later on the indie rock Garbage style and grunge blend of Superficial Gun is another highlight, a tight, compact and vibrant high energy affair with alternating careful and forceful arrangements.

Many of the rest of the songs suffers from an overall lack of tension and contrast for me. Often with strong and compelling verse passages and sometimes transitions too, but where the songs then ever so slightly falls apart when the chorus kicks in. In other cases the vibrancy is lost when the song develops, Walk Alone is brilliant as a vocals and acoustic guitar driven blues oriented affair, but when it starts developing towards becoming a hard edged 70’s hard rock tune the magic is broken for me. All of these tracks are enjoyable in their own right, but lacks that small detail here and there that maintains that feeling of encountering something a bit special.

Concluding piece Straitjacket On is an exception though. For my tastes it is too slow, the twisted vocals while probably suitable for the lyrics just doesn’t manage to carry the song in the same manner as the otherwise good quality vocals do elsewhere, and it becomes just too repetitive for me as it unfolds as well. Tastes differ of course, and I can easily see this one being the favorite of someone else, but for me an my tastes this song just doesn’t cut it.

At the end of the day, Manny Ribera’s debut album comes across as a mixed bag of all sorts. If you have a general taste for hard rock from the last three decades and suspect that a band juggling with different varieties from different decades in most songs, then this is a CD you should give a spin at some point. A certain special affection for grunge and stoner rock will probably be required, as long as it’s not an exclusive taste for material of that kind.

My rating: 67/100