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The Muffins - Manna/Mirage CD (album) cover

MANNA/MIRAGE

The Muffins

 

Canterbury Scene

4.14 | 116 ratings

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Progfan97402
Prog Reviewer
5 stars Why did it take my until now to buy anything from the Muffins? It's a huge regret as I've been aware of these guys since 1996. I now have a copy of their debut LP Manna/Mirage and what an album it is! The groups consisted of Dave Newhouse, Paul Sears, Billy Swann, and Tom Scott, and they hailed from Silver Spring, Maryland, outside of Washington, DC. Comedian Lewis Black also hailed from Silver Spring, but of course he has nothing to do with prog rock (I don't know what kind of music he's into), he's a comedian who prefers the environs of New York City. Most importantly, Steve Feigenbaum hails from there, as he founded Random Radar Records, later on Wayside Music, and Random Radar's successor Cuneiform Records. Unsurprisingly The Muffins recorded for Random Radar, and that label pretty much served the same purpose as Cuneiform. So little surprise that Cuneiform would reissues their back catalog and previously unreleased archival material in the 1990s, as well as new reunion releases.

I have most of the major UK Canterbury releases, but I am totally blown away one of the best examples of the Canterbury style should be the Muffins given their non-UK origins, and the fact American bands playing prog rock of any style are frequently accused of being nothing more than pale copycats. Dave Newhouse and the boys certainly did their homework and actually created a masterpiece sure the rival even the UK classics. Since they knew they would only by fooling themselves by imitating British accents (Robert Wyatt and Richard Sinclair never hid their British accent while singing), they stuck to being an all-instrumental band, with the exception of one squeely vocal part that goes "Captain Boomerang" (a DC Comics villain) on "The Adventures of Captain Boomerang (for Mike Forrester)" (who's this Mike Forrester? Michael Forrester the British WWII- era Naval officer? Not sure). "Monkey With the Golden Eyes" has a bit of that laid-back Hatfield & the North feel to it, and then "Hobart Got Burned" is the next piece. Here you get treated with lots of squeaky saxes, sounding like the band gone totally RIO on us, reminding me of the more "out there" sections of Henry Cow's Leg-End. Then out of nowhere comes this wonderful electric piano riff with some great spacy sax solos over it. "Amelia Eahart" continues in that Hatfield & the North and Soft Machine vein, but out of nowhere the band suddenly goes into Gong territory complete with glissando guitar, after a bit then this really eerie, droning organ goes on for the next couple of minutes before it fades out. Finally you get the side- length "The Adventures of Captain Boomerang (for Mike Forrester). They really go to town on this piece, going through many different changes and moods, but towards the end they slow down, like they finally ran out of energy, but suddenly it ends with a bang with some great Canterbury-type organ soloing.

Also it needs to be pointed out what an amazing drummer Paul Sears is! He certainly is one of the great, unrecognized drummers out there. I am not a musician so I can't always judge the talents of band members (other than that of KISS who stick to cliched rock guitar, drums and lyrics), but Sears really does some amazing and complex drumming and make it seem so effortless! He doesn't get the recognition of say, Bruford, or Pierre Moerlen, or Pip Pyle, but his playing is certainly up there with the best!

Listening to this album, you'd swear that 1978 was the height of progressive rock, when in fact it's been a pretty disappointing year, at least for the major acts (Love Beach being the most obvious example). This was, after all, the US being caught up in disco (Saturday Night Fever helped disco receive even more mainstream acceptance) and the UK caught up in punk (both which would implode by 1980). Clear that Newhouse & the boys were totally oblivious about the less-than-favorable musical landscape of 1978, and stuck to their guns and recorded and released a masterpiece. Helps that they had a local label to release this. Truly an album that is completely essential to your collection. While Prog Archives discourages five star ratings so you can be encouraged to be more objective, this album truly deserves it!

Progfan97402 | 5/5 |

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