Looking back on all the newcomer bands that emerged back in 2012 we can clearly say that Welsh duo MAN WITHOUT COUNTRY was one of our most favourite one. Ryan James and Tomas Greenhalf provided a catchy mixture of epic synthesizer pop with shoegaze appeal and bittersweet lyrics about false stardom and self-abandonment. Foe was the name of their debut longplayer and it was nothing less than the promise of an interesting musical future. Now the band is about to release the official follow-up record to it on October the 21st.
Entropy, Pt. 1 marks a four song strong new EP and might be the first one in a series of similar releases under that name. “The idea behind Entropy came from our passion for digital manipulation and recycling audio.” says Thomas Greenhalf in the press release. “We dismantled some of our old ideas, took audio samples from old drum machines, old pianos, and even audio from our album ‘Foe’. We manipulated and reconstructed them to create the new music” The result is basically a logical continuation of the beloved formula from the longplayer. Claymation follows the tradition of previous hit singles like Puppets in order to provide catchy hooklines with epic shoegaze moments. Oil Spill got a certain industrial approach to it.
While this might sound familiar to you, a song like Catfish provides some new elements. A hypnotic technoid beat that teams up with siren-like voices by Danish singer Lisa Alma who duets with James on this one. But still it got that special MAN WITHOUT COUNTRY flair in it. The short trip into the world of Entropy, Pt. 1 ends with the epic tune Deadsea which sees the duo losing itself in the total freedom of sound and space. A musical drift away from all the earthly elements. They’ve got their heads in the clouds and we don’t want them to come back down. This EP leaves you hungry for more and we surely can’t wait for it to appear.
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