The Kingsbury Manx
Let You Down

LA RECENSIONE

Music for lazy souls.
More than an album of songs, this one by Kingsbury Manx (from 2001) seems like an album of whispers, arpeggios, and a few but impactful chords; contemporary with the greatly blessed of what is called "Neo Acoustic Movement", and I'm referring to the Kings of Convenience.

From KoC, the Chapell Hill quintet has borrowed a bit of everything: the same taste in arrangements, the same sound, the same vocal blends where, however, unlike the former, they have faltered in writing quality. This album, had it contained "stronger" and more memorable tracks (and let's also say, if it had arrived a few months before KoC...) would have had the chops to repeat the success that, to this day, has eluded them. As I was saying, "Let You Down" indeed speaks a suspended and rarefied language that skillfully combines the lesson of various Tim Buckley & Co. with the low-fi and the more classic American folk-acoustic movement, with a keen eye for well-set vocal arrangements very aligned with the genre, but in the long run, it tends to become a bit too cloying and ethereal: never a song to remember, never a riff that accompanies you "after," and here, I repeat, lies the real limitation of the album.

A very pleasant and "welcoming" record that, by the third listen, becomes like a long and uninterrupted suite for nostalgic evenings marked by boredom and the bliss of doing nothing.