for the record

Author: Emily Temple

Rabbit Habbits, the highly anticipated third album from notorious gypsy-jazz ringleaders Man Man comes out April 8 on Anti- Records. The boys have been playing many of the songs that appear on this album for months in their live shows, so the enthusiasm for the release is backed up by a fan base that already knows and loves half the tracks. It's not surprising.

Man Man is unique in its interpretation of pop - its music is a passionately crafted bag of tricks (and treats) and their live shows are legendary for their irreverent exuberance. It's Zappa and Captain Beefheart at a circus. For their recorded albums, the members of Man Man admitted to researching the sound a beheading makes (apparently a beheading by sword sounds much different than a beheading by axe) and for their live shows they throw spoons and blow on plastic horns. This new album is much more restrained than anything we've seen from them before, allowing much more space to mix in with the toy trumpets and lead singer Honus Honus' Waits-esque growls. In retrospect, I guess it's fair to say that we should have seen this sort of thing coming all along - they're spinning off the sensibility that brought them to the dark and simple "Skin Tension" and the flat-out emotionally devastating "Van Helsing Boombox," both of which appeared on their 2006 release Six Demon Bag.

In fact, those were two of the best songs on that album, something I didn't stop to reflect on during my first listen to the new album. It is slightly less rollicking, which disappointed me initially, and the fifth track, "Mysteries of the Universe Unraveled," essentially 11 seconds of firework sounds, made me groan with the futility of it all. But I tend to get over my resistance to change (however reluctantly) when faced with such obvious growth and maturity in one of my favorite bands. Rabbit Habbits pulls to the surface that stomach tug that's always been hidden deep within the most deliciously carnival-esque Man Man jams, the same one that made the aforementioned "Skin Tension" and "Van Helsing Boombox" so fantastic. It's the expression of a wrenching, attacking, deep sort of sorrow, expressed with such ferocity that it's forced into being joy and sadness at the same time.

As always, the manic music is only half of what makes you whirr - the lyrics are what really get me. Title track "Rabbit Habbits" invests itself in this new direction towards emotionalism, as one of several true love ballads on the album: "She don't want to die alone and he don't want to dine alone / He don't even taste the food he eats anymore" and "all your sorrow's all stacked amongst your nest of friends." Standout "Doo Right" sounds like a twisted '50s ballad, with Honus Honus wailing, "I'm outside your window / throwing bricks at the moon" and betrays again the band's movement towards the completely weird but heartfelt love song: "I can't breathe underwater like I used to / Before I met you." And as far as I'm concerned, "Top Drawer" is a perfect track, harkening back a bit to the previous swampy chaos and grinning, self-assured joy. You can almost hear the sparkle in Honus Honus' eyes when he croons, "People claim I'm possessed by the devil / but father I know I'm possessed by your daughter."

The album ends with two seven-plus minute tracks, "Poor Jackie" and "Whalebones." Both are fantastic, and neither one feels like a seven-minute track. "Poor Jackie" in particular is absolutely epic - a story about a female Jack the Ripper copycat from the perspective of a potential victim, who cries, "Please come with your sharp knives and murder me / my eyes are more open now than they'll ever be" and "I don't see what everybody sees in your sexy body / all I see is a shallow grave trapped inside a pretty face." His voice breaks down into the far-away tap of drum sticks before Jackie joins him in a beautiful alto, sweetly singing, "There ain't no god here, as far as I can see." Their voices merge and wind together before a collection of chaotic horns slowly overtake and overcome them both. If this isn't a beautiful new direction, I don't know what is.