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Feb 18, 2022The music is simple with wonderful harmonies, but the breadth of what’s covered is so intriguingly complex, that while difficult to digest at first, exerts a yearning tug that keeps pulling one back for more listens.
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Feb 18, 2022It’s not clear if some of the songs are confessional and concern Trent and Hearst’s marriage. There seem to be personal statements on songs like “Divide & Conquer” and “Bleed Me”, but they could be personae instead. As music, the actual truth doesn’t matter as much as the emotional weight they carry.
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UncutFeb 18, 2022The finest moment is the moving wartime ballad, "No Man's Land." [Mar 2022, p.35]
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Feb 18, 2022It’s little surprise that Hearst and Trent have taken this edgy approach given the dread and despair heaped on the world over the course of the past two years. With Manticore, they attempt to make some sense of it all.
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Feb 18, 2022The sense of low-key but heightened melodrama can be alluring thanks to the open-ended arrangements, yet much of Manticore unfolds at a crawl, so it feels much less visceral than previous Shovels & Rope albums even if it has a greater emotional range.