Einstein Music Journal

Serena Maneesh- Serena Maneesh: Review

Friday, June 09, 2006

When I first listened to this album a week ago I had a vision. My mind placed me in a room alone surrounded by white light and flashing purple colours. Unfortunately this room was my grand mothers aluminium garden shed and the music playing was Serena Maneesh.
Recorded over six months in four different cities (from Chicago to Oslo) the Norwegian group’s self-titled debut is something very different, and can be quite daunting the first time around. Putting together long drawn out distortion with violin and whispering female vocals gives the album a tick in the original box. But originality is where the excitement ends, with nothing to back up the idea this album lacks direction and substance.
Fitting Serena Maneesh into a specific genre is also extremely difficult. Much of the music press opts for the generic term experimental indie rock. A more descriptive term would be industrial gothic rock. It combines the dark masochistic sound with the garden shed motif perfectly.
Serena Maneesh would be an amazing live performance. ‘Selina’s Melodie Fountain’ and ‘Your Blood in Mine’ would sound great rebounding between all four walls of a warehouse. The same excitement isn’t created from hearing their studio recording.

posted by Nick Fulton @ 1:26 pm