Thoughts on Manic Candid Episode (2019) by The Murlocs · 2:36am Mar 27th, 2019
The Murlocs are an Australian blues/garage rock band that are signed onto the label Flightless Records. Their fourth album, Manic Candid Episode, came out last Friday, and I bought it and listened to it.
And I really enjoyed it.
Possibly the two biggest selling points for this album are the sound quality and the vocals. Regarding the former, it's crisp and clear and the best it's ever been for this band. There isn't any fuzz, and while that fuzz sound worked for their previous albums like Young Blindness (2016) and Old Locomotive (2017) the crispness really brought some cool sound to this album.
The vocals, as I said, were really good. The lead singer, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, has a very distinct yet sweet-sounding voice that gives the band a special flavor. His voice gives it just the right blues kind of feel. This is especially good because he seems to be more confident in this album, and trying different things. His vocals in the earlier albums were good, but relatively muted and not that special. Here it's way better and pushed to good potential.
I also really love the composition in general. The music sounds nice and feels like it's trying new things; the track I inserted above, Comfort Zone, is very much out of the realms of what they usually do, yet I find it sounds really good. The lyrics are also pretty good as per usual with this band. It's obvious a lot of thought went into it. The mixing isn't too bad either; you can hear most if not all of the instruments at one time.
I honestly don't have a lot of complaints about this album. It can get a bit slow at parts, I'd say, but I think it accomplishes what it's trying to do very well. The musicianship is really good, and it's a treat for the ears. Manic Candid Episode is probably my second favorite album of theirs after Old Locomotive. I will be seeing this band live next month, and I can't wait to do so.
My favorite tracks off the album include Samsara Maya, Comfort Zone, What If?, and Problematic Subject. I highly encourage that you check these guys out.
