	Reviews

"SUPERMANSUN" - TAKEN FROM MELODY MAKER

January 25, 1997

MANSUN's Paul Draper takes on the role of a superhero and moral crusader on the band's debut album, "Attack Of The Grey Lantern".
   The LP's main lyrical theme is the idea that beneath the veneer of respectability in small towns across Britain lies a hotbed of vice and hypocrisy. The theory comes to life through an array of characters such as the already familiar `Stripper Vicar', and the world-weary eyes watching the sorry parade belong to Draper - the `Grey Lantern' of the title. His character is based on Green Lantern, the legendary comic book superhero.
   "Grey Lantern is almost my alter ego or the person that everyone would like to be," said Draper, Mansun singer, guitarist and lyricist. "He's a moral crusader. He's based on a superhero but he's grey.
   "Me and Chad [Mansun's guitarist] have rented this house and we painted the whole house grey, even the skirting boards. I got into grey.
   "I used to wear white T-shirts, but they used to get dirty very quickly. Then I wore black T-shirts, but they got all dandruff. Being a logical person, I now wear grey T-shirts.
   "It's an obvious practical colour. And Grey Lantern is a practical superhero.
   "If you scratch away the surface, you'll find the absurdity and the sordidness of British society, and this is a very British album in the David Bowie sense of the British album. Stripping vicars and people playing `Naked Twister' and small-town liggers like `Egg Shaped Fred' are all the sort of characters you find in a small town.
   "Grey Lantern is just standing against all that, really. He probably reflects a lot of my disillusionment with the way things are around here where we live, in Chester."
   The album also unravels the mystery of the stripping vicar. The final track, `Dark Mavis', reveals him to be a transvestite called, yes, Mavis.
   The band originally intended the album to concentrate solely on its sleazy underbelly theme, with sub-plots attacking organised religion, specifically Catholicism, and the monarchy.
   "We wanted to make a self-contained album, lyrically and musically," said Paul. "But like all great concepts, you get distracted half-way through.
   "Your mind works so fast you forget the direction.
   "We recorded it in a real rush on our days off from touring. We were working really, really intensely, and the ideas were going right and left all the time. We ended up putting all sorts of new ideas in.
   "So the concept is unfulfilled. It's like half a concept. It's like a glorious mess.
   "If you look back at great ideas throughout history, they flail. Like Icharus flew too near the sun and his wings melted.
   "My ultimate aim is to create an album with just one song on it, all the music running from one passage into the other with one lyrical theme. This album has a lot of elements of that."
   The opening and closing tracks, `The Chad Who Loved Me' and `Dark Mavis', feature a 32-piece orchestra.
   "We wanted the opening of the album to sound like a John Barry Orchestra, almost parodying the James Bond theme. We wanted to send it to the Broccoli album. We wanted them to use it for the next James Bond film. Aim for the stars and if you hit somewhere below, you still succeed.
   "Then we thought, wouldn't it be good if on the last track, the orchestra went back and played the opening track again, if the album opened and closed on that."
   A remarkably confident, ambitious and accomplished debut, the album shows off its influences but wraps them in a variety of contrasting styles and moods during tracks that range from three to eight-and-a-half minutes in length. Originally, some were 20 minutes.
   Draper produced the album himself. He commented: "In some ways it hindered us 'cos it's quite raw and the playing isn't fantastic and there are lots of strange things that probably a producer wouldn't include. But it gives it a naive charm. We were just pissing in the wind with it, really."
   A gust of piss-laden wind blows towards us early in February with the release by Parlophone of a single, `She Makes My Nose Bleed' - a song about bondage. The album follows on February 17.
   In the meantime, Mansun have already started work on their next LP which again, will feature something of a lyrical theme. A night in the casualty ward, anyone? You have been warned.