Never question Erik Wunder’s gumption: The design scheme of the second album from Man’s Gin, the folk-rock project of Cobalt drummer and multi-instrumentalist, mimics the layout of a classic Swans title. The band’s name, written in large white capital letters, stretches across the top of the record’s cover within a thick black bar; below, the album’s name, Rebellion Hymns, squeezes across the bottom, caps-lock again surrounded by black. The disc’s spine even co-opts the familiar Young God Records layout, with Profound Lore’s coat of arms and the album’s catalog number both offset in separate white boxes. Indeed, Michael Gira’s work, particularly as it bled in the late 90s from Swans into Angels of Light, offers a clear stylistic guide for Wunder’s own reflections on morality and morbidity. Like Gira, Wunder’s swollen, resonant bellow lifts lines about desperation, resignation, and perseverance above electrically charged acoustic music-- a bleak mirror image of typecast heaviness.
Such a conspicuous reference to one of music’s great cult acts cuts both ways, of course. It situates Rebellion Hymns within a clear aesthetic framework, but it also sets a particularly heavy onus of expectation squarely at the feet of Man’s Gin. But by and large, Wunder proves to be a compelling songwriter and arranger, overhauling structures in ways that make it clear that Man’s Gin is neither mere obsequy or a vacuous side-project from a musician better-known for his role in Cobalt. Most often, Rebellion Hymns gathers itself into grand waves, with what might sound like folk or country tunes rising deliberately into dramatic crescendos. During album opener “Inspiration”, for instance, Wunder delivers a series of motivational credos (“Take a leaf off a tree and make it worth something”) over a steady rise in volume; by song’s end, he’s yelling his mantras, his voice straining and cracking over accordion, drums, and piano. The terrific “Deer Head & the Rain” pushes from a similarly polite mien to, four minutes later, a truly Swans-styled meanness, as Wunder shouts over cascading drums and guitars that surge through a thin scrim of dissonance.
Such a songwriting script is a holdover from Smiling Dogs, Wunder’s previous and much more monotonous LP as Man’s Gin. On Rebellion Hymns, for better and worse, he strikes out in several new directions at once, aided again by the versatile backing band of Joshua Lozano and Scott Edward and contributions from a number of guests, including former Swan Jarboe and Cobalt’s other half, Phil McSorley. “Old House (Bark at the Moonwalk)” slyly approximates the shape of black metal with piano, its keys flickering quickly while the drums crack open behind it; a series of rhythmic switchbacks and momentum swings, “Old House” eventually peaks in a full sprint, with Wunder yelling over chaotic guitar and still-pounding piano. “Never Do the Neon Lights” pushes decidedly toward pop-rock, swiveling on a hook that’s perfectly sharp and strangely reassuring. Closer “Hibernation Time” is Wunder’s attempt to construct an acoustic doom epic, with the baritone saxophone of Yakuza’s Bruce Lamont smoldering beneath forlorn vocals and a curtain of neon noise.
These are indeed intriguing moments, but as an hour-long, 12-track album, Rebellion Hymns fails to weave together the various and variably provocative threads that Wunder offers. The band flips from the plaintive acoustic croon of “Varicose” to the awkward gypsy folk growl of “Off The Coast of Sicily”, from the strangely bustling and winning grunge of “Never Do the Neon Lights” to the demented acoustic plod of “Deer Head & the Rain”. The band scatters four instrumental interludes through the disc, too-- three are untitled, though the last and best is a candlelit piano dirge called “Cellar Door”. The scraped piano strings and aleatory percussion of the first and third such pieces and the asphyxiated guitar of the middle number are rather rote lifts of 20th century composition. More important, though, is that none of these wordless bits do anything to enhance the album as an experience or to help the tunes themselves make more sense as neighbors. Rather, they only sit in their places, unarticulated thoughts that never fell quite to the cutting-room floor.
Wunder’s voice doesn’t do him any favors here, either. He’s a terrific singer, with a deep tone that seems to bubble up from a pool of experience. But he wanders uncomfortably inside of it, alternately taking on the characters of Eddie Vedder, Mike Patton, Scott Kelly, Layne Staley, and, at certain points along the way, himself. Man’s Gin remains, then, the quintessential other band, functioning more as a reservoir for outlying ideas and accessorized themes than an outfit with a direct focus or aim. But even though Rebellion Hymns is less cohesive than Smiling Dogs, that’s because it’s more imaginative, suggesting that Wunder is slowly acclimating to his role as Man’s Gin singer, songwriter and-- most important-- bandleader*.*
