You might remember that I wrote a piece about the Welsh band MAN a few months ago when I was still a newbie to their music.  Since then I have received some mind-blowing MAN albums, bursting with their eclectic blend of West Coast psychedelia, hard rock, blues, progressive rock, funk, Beatlesy harmonies, and top notch jamming.  These albums have been beautifully remastered with excellent bonus material and packaging and new liner notes from one of the MAN legends himself, guitarist/singer/songwriter, Deke Leonard.  The most recent reissues include the three albums, Back Into The Future, Slow Motion and Maximum Darkness. 

I’ve got to say that these MAN reissues have been in very heavy rotation in my iTunes and iPod for the last couple months.  I have gone from a complete ignorance of this band, not even having heard of them before 2008, to being converted to an unmitigated MAN fan by mid-2008.  Why is MAN such a horribly overlooked band, you might ask?  I’m really not sure, but my guesses are a) perhaps mismanagement (a la Moby Grape) and b) lack of radio hits.  At least the Grateful Dead had “Truckin’” and “Casey Jones”  But this isn’t necessarily mainstream music here either.  This is music for music’s sake.  Here’s my completely-biased account of the most recent set of MAN albums that have just been re-released on England’s Esoteric Recordings this summer.

The most recently-completed set of remasters might be my favorite of all the MAN material.  It’s an eclectic lot of three stellar albums, and one of the albums is, in my mind, probably their masterpiece.  The album is a studio effort called Slow Motion, and is absolutely brilliant from the cover art of Alfred E. Newman holding a fish to the sublime music inside.  Another is a stellar live album, Maximum Darkness, which features MAN with guest John Cippolina, of Quicksilver Messenger Service fame.  And the third album, Back Into The Future, was initially a double album, which now fits on a single CD.  But two discs of a complete live 1973 MAN concert were added to this release to make it a whopping 3-disc set with 3 hours of music.  And I know you can’t judge an album by its cover, but the cover art for all three of these albums is first-rate.  Two of the three covers were done by renowned psychedelic artist, Rick Griffin, who did many Grateful Dead sleeves and psychedelic posters, with which you’re undoubtedly familiar.  Here's more on the albums individually, with a little bit of band member information, since personnel was something that was forever in flux with the MAN band.