Man Man
Yeasayer

Comparisons to the usual avant-garde forefathers - Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits - persist, but Man Man are decidedly not identity thieving or even overtly referencing these spiritual godfathers in their music, but rather are acting as torchbearers of the unusual, the spontaneous and the plainly fucking funny in an increasingly homogenized world. "I'm just making the songs I know how to write," says Honus. "The one thing I want to clarify is that this is an organic project -- who we are, the kind of lives we lived before we met each other, and the lives we have together. [That's] what makes this band and this music what it is. I would say being broke is one of my biggest influences. That and being in and out of relationships. Those are bigger influences than listening to a Beefheart record."

Indeed, it would be a mistake to write off Man Man as simply "experimental," "psychedelic" or even "jokesy," for they are some, but mostly none, of that. Their music is clearly rooted in rock, blues and pop, and they can really play all those instruments. A long list of the most successful, accessible and accomplished indie rock bands working today - think Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Cat Power - have asked Man Man on tour. At a Man Man show, one might see a hipster chaining up a fixie out front, a gaggle of high school kids with a genuine "Lord of the Flies/Peter Pan's Lost Boy's" fire in their eyes, some hippie old-timers, still in it to win it. The scope of their appeal attests to Man Man's genuine abilities and the palpable emotion of the music.

With Rabbit Habits, their Anti- Records debut, and the natural extension of their body of work begun with The Man In A Blue Turban With A Face and continued with Six Demon Bag, Man Man bring their incomparable vision to bear. Successfully capturing the raw spirit and essence of a Man Man live show, Rabbit Habits is the end product of the efforts of a band who are earnestly saying something important, even if you can't always make out the words over the blare of the sousaphone.