Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - Catnip Dynamite

All Music Guide

Saying that Roger Manning loves the seventies is at once an understatement there's a reason he first came to wider attention playing with Jellyfish and a perfect description of what he's doing on his second full solo album Catnip Dynamite, though happily it's not a completely musty revivalist exercise. Instead Manning knows how to make all his endless series of familiar signifiers feel more of the moment than most can manage; whether that's the example of his sometime employer Beck rubbing off or not, it ensures Catnip Dynamite hits from the start and doesn't let up. If anything Manning's mixandmatch approach to perfect pop knows how to draw on multiple layers at once "Love's Never Half as Good" simultaneously recalls late sixties Beach Boys and late eighties XTC interpretations of that sound, while the brilliant "Down in Front" could be both a classic trashglam hit from the midseventies UK and Denim's awesomely perfect reworking of that style from its own nineties releases. But for... all the spotthereference games that one could very easily play, Catnip Dynamite is often at its best when a listener just lets it flow, from the groovy "The Quickening" to the spectacular "Living In End Times," perhaps the sunniest pop/rock song about the Apocalypse in some years. A secret highlight might be "Survival Machine" if the combination of hyperactive church organ and falsetto isn't a Sparks tribute by intent, it's still one in the end anyway. The American release of the album adds some live tracks from a Japanese show by Manning and his band, including two covers "Europa and the Pirate Twins" by Thomas Dolby and all twelve minutes of Elton John's "Love Lies Bleeding," which deserves credit just for the sheer shock of it being done. - Ned Raggett, All Music Guide Read more Less