Kingsbury Manx
Ascensuer Ouvert!
pop
(3.5 out of 5 stars)
When the sun's just right during late summer about dusk closing your eyes provides a sepia-toned reality of ringed light.
At this time even closing your eyes can't keep the sun out.
Ascenseur Ouvert! the latest from Chapel Hill veterans Kingsbury Manx has that effect.
You can try all you want but there's no way to block out the bright melodies. It's a retro-tinged LP full of classic hooks and undeniable melodic turns.
This is dusk music.
It's front porch music. For lack of a better descriptor it's summer music breezing along without ever being forgettable or easy to ignore.
That quality comes from the subtlety employed by the band which layers sounds and vocals for an effect both enveloping and immediately engaging.
As the album drifts slowly along the underlying keys of Paul Finn begin to take a more prominent role in the arrangements offering a layer of sonic beauty that might have been tucked just out of reach.
This record is best listened to closely.
But like anything worth listening to it functions just fine as the soundtrack to everyday events.
At time pensive other times relaxed and always multifaceted Ascenseur Ouvert! is a record to return to over and over.
Each time something new will reveal itself each layer peeling away until the beauty and complexity is fully appreciated.
Kingsbury Manx are well aware of this too. They take great care in getting everything exactly right. Take the four years between this record and its predecessor The Rise and Fall of the South.
It was time well spent. The band crafted this record and Finn started Odessa Records the imprint that brought Ascenseur Ouvert! to the masses.
It's obvious that the band has refined its sound adding more prominent keys and even the occasional bit of synth to add variation to the songs.
The songs as individual compositions hold up on their own but the sequencing and transitions between them lead to the seamless nature of the record.
That attention to detail might occasionally be lost on bands but not the Manx" a group that has been around long enough to know the tricks to make a record as enjoyable as possible.
And I know that ""enjoyable"" isn't exactly the best adjective ever. But" honestly it says a lot for the quality of a record when you actually get excited about playing it over and over.
When you actively dig deep through all of its layers of sounds trying to find some kind of true meaning.
So yeah" it is enjoyable.
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