Serena-Maneesh
S-M Backwards
Release Date: Sep 23, 2008
Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Pop
Record label: Smalltown Supersound
Music Critic Score
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Album Review: S-M Backwards by Serena-Maneesh
Excellent, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
In 2008 Smalltown Supersound released S-M Backwards, a double-disc set housing both EPs plus bonus mixes of many of the songs and an unreleased track, the creepy and atmospheric "Death Parade, Slow." The mixes are interesting but not revelatory. Kramer cleans up and adds some sparkle to "Drive Me Home the Lonely Nights," the duo of Daniel C. Smith and Emyle give "Hear Bleed Phil Harmonic" a Robin Guthrie-ish sheen and rough up "Sehnsucht/Drag Me Upstairs" with some truly ugly guitar sounds, and Christopher Colbert stretches "Leipziger Love" into an epic-length ambient guitar jam.
Opinion: Average
Serena-Maneesh do a lot of repackaging for a band whose songs don’t change all that much. It would hardly be worth mentioning for a different sort of band – a DFA act, say, or Phish – but this one’s musical parameters neither extend very far nor lend themselves particularly well to remix treatment. Compared to their most loudly cited influence, that paragon of dormancy My Bloody Valentine, all Serena-Maneesh’s singles and remixes are starting to clock in at comical disproportion to the diversity of their core catalog.