This album is a bit of anomaly. I know at the time all of the trendy journo’s from the likes of the NME (and other pop rags) were a bit confused by this record. Mansun were seen as indie Brit pop darlings, mainly due to the success of the first record, Attack Of The Grey Lantern – and specifically their single Wide Open Space. So everyone was waiting to hear what they came up with as a follow up. I think it’s fair to say a lot of people were surprised when they came up with a modern Prog masterpiece.
Now, you may think that a band would have committed commercial suicide by doing this, but there were still some very poppy commercial sounding tracks to release as singles like Negative, and Being A Girl. Ironically, this would be the beginning of the end for the band, as internal squabbles would end up with them trying to replace front man Paul Draper behind his back.
Anyway, at least they leave behind two totally great albums and two good albums. Stand out tracks on this album are the title track, Six (a great tune), and Pink Floydisms of Shotgun which is a personal favourite. Not sure a record company would accept something like this from a pop act today, but I guess you can look on this as their Sgt Pepper. If you like an album that keeps on giving and still sounds fresh years later, than this would be the album for you.
8/10 from The Grooveman.
