Last year, one-time Brooklyn dance-punks Liars confounded expectations by finally doing something that didn't completely reset them: a rock-oriented, self-titled album. A couple of hours down the Eastern seaboard, Philadelphia's Man Man are letting us know we haven't got them completely pegged by...making sure we think we've got them completely pegged. Yes, goddammit, again. Like sophomore album Six Demon Bag (Pitchfork's #20 album of 2006) before it, the first mp3 from the repetition-loving absurdists' forthcoming Rabbit Habits does little to disavow the Waits/Beefheart/Zappa gypsy/hobo/carnie rep that has encircled Honus Honus, Pow Pow, and their hirsute colleagues since the waltzing brawls and brawling waltzes of The Man in a Blue Turban With a Face back in 2004. On "Top Drawer", the lurching drums and careening circus organs critics have cited until blue-in-the-face set up scratchy-throated barks about haircuts and shoeshines, top dogs and hot dogs, water and lattes; I'm allergic to pretty much all of them, but they sound pretty good here. The push-pull between wacky and your-dad-crying serious that Pitchfork's Nick Sylvester noted to differentiate Six Demon Bag from The Man in a Blue Turban? It's here, too-- "You wonder where true love went"-- though it doesn't last long before an off-kilter instrumental break. So the last band in the world you'd stick with the "they just write good, catchy songs" tag just wrote another good, catchy song. Weirdos.

MP3:> Man Man: "Top Drawer"
[from Rabbit Habits; due 04/08/08 on Anti-]