KINGDOM OF NOISE

It´s not uncommon in rock music world, that band meet big musical or personal difficulties when recording an album. That happened to Man in 2008 and recently recorded album never mixed and band splitted. After that new- born Man wiped off the parts of old members recordings and recorded new ones instead except old drummer Bob Richards parts, because they didn´t use click track into old recordings. So this album become some kind of hybrid, but still it´s quite good. New members were James Beck in guitar and Rene Robrahn in drums. According to Discogs Beck is not playing in this album, so they just seemed to wipe off old guitarist George Jones parts. Robrahn plays drums in two tracks.

"Shadow Of Hand" starts album in country rock way, that has very good, rhythmic vibe in it! "Steal the World" goes into stadiumrock direction, but sounds are quite rough, to me it´s sounds there is no bass in this track or at least it has mixed really low. I really like this song, because it has some kind of early morning atmosphere. "Iceflower" changes direction back to country rock, but it has really great melodies in it. "Russian Roulette" puts big gear on and rocks quite well with it´s brass and hammond sounding synths! In the end song goes little bit experimental direction. Instead of noise rock the title piece is old jazz track. Really enjoyable anyhow. Lyrics seem to tell about difficulties to make this record with digital equipment. "Standing In the Rain" is again straighforward rocker. In "Speak" tempo slows, but this song goes into more difficult and melodic structure. Absolutely one of the highlights! In "Chuffin` Like Muffin" we get country rock back. Cheerful piece! "Dissolve Into Despair" is most surprising song: this great melody song ends the album into bossanova rhythm!

Not sure what this albums name means, because there really is any noise in this album. Maybe it has chosen to describe the conditions of making this record. But it´s much more same kind of easy listening album as every album has been after Man´s reunion. Even band members come and go, the music seems to stay same. Anyway this is the best album after Man´s reunion so far. It started my morning in a very cheerful way! Still it´s three stars album. There is even lesser prog in this album than previous ones.