The Mantells are a 3 piece Indie band from Manchester comprising of Tom Barrow (Vocals/Guitar), Dale Moran (Backing Vocals/Bass) and Lewis Moran (Backing Vocals/Drums).
A couple of their previous singles have been featured on my blog – ‘Men in Suits’ as a video of the week back in December 2014 and ‘Payday Playboys’ was reviewed in May last year.
Since then they’ve been hard at work playing numerous gigs and featuring in Mike Staniforth’s film The Music Factory. The question : “How far can an unsigned band get in 17 weeks? Manchester’s 3 piece indie band, The Mantells, were challenged to write, record, market and release a song with the aim of getting it into the Christmas Top 100 chart. 17 weeks is the average run time of musical reality TV shows where someone can go from an unknown to the Christmas number 1 and National fame. Featuring original music by The Mantells and interviews with Dutch Uncles, Blossoms, Augustines, The View and many more”. You can read about the making of the film on Mike Staniforth’s blog and also watch the film for free.
As if that wasn’t busy enough, they’ve also somehow had time to record their ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’ EP. And it’s a brilliant release with 4 excellent songs, each of which has a really solid sound featuring great riffing, tight knit rhythms and excellent vocals.
Stop to Think
A great opening to the EP, an excellent opening riff over a brooding chord sets the scene really well. The drumming and bass give a great momentum. The vocals are excellent with a great energy and passion. The riff has surf / western qualities at times and there’s a great sing along quality to the chorus.
Human Touch
A great uptempo opening from the drumming and bass complemented by another great riff, the song evolves a great sound with excellent vocals again. There’s a brooding quality to the verses and a really nice change to more of a chord vamp feel in the chorus which also has a great sing along quality.
Sunshine
Has a really cool jangly acoustic opening, leading into an excellent strummed riff with a wicked call and response feel to the bass in the verses and great use of a chromatic chord run in the chorus. The vocals are superb again and I can definitely see this becoming a very popular live song.
Such A Shame
A great jangly riff to open, the song has a great momentum from drumming and bass and a kind of longing feel. There’s a really nice change in feel to a more distorted riff in the verses with the sound opening up again in the chorus. There’s a great momentum to this song which has anthemic qualities, some great harmonies and a solo too. This will no doubt also become a very popular live song.
The EP is available from a number of digital outlets including iTunes, Spotify and Amazon and you can also see The Mantells live at a number of upcoming EP shows which are detailed below:
