Mp3s: Serena Maneesh in Cambridge, MA

Posted on March 20, 2006 at 7:41 am | No Comments

Norway’s Serena Maneesh is in the last stretch of their first full North American tour, a cross-country trek that brought them to SXSW over the weekend, and here in Boston a couple weeks back. Like the Editors, they’re a band without an album… or at least one they can actually sell at shows. It’s been available overseas since last year, but won’t officially arrive on our shores until May, courtesy of Playlouder/Beggars Banquet (eta: thanks to Insound, you can buy the import on the cheap. very nice.)

And an excellent album it is: a cohesive, layered, guitar-crazy epic. I don’t put much stock in Pitchfork reviews, but they got this one right. High marks and a spot in their top 50 of 2005. After the band’s soundcheck at TT the Bears in Cambridge, I mentioned to their non-singin’ guitar player how much I was liking the record, and we got talking about the frustration of everyone having heard it despite its import-only status. The delay between the acclaim and the U.S. release is a tough one, and the band knows that steady touring is the best way to get the downloaders excited again when it finally arrives over here.

Unfortunately the May release comes at a time when Serena Maneesh will be back at home, finished with this tour and getting ready to hit the European festival circuit over the summer. It’ll be months before they’re back here, but it’ll be a full-on fall tour, and they’re promising to make up for the cancelled Canadian shows. Speaking of which, turns out the reason for those cancellations was a problem with their U.S. visas, and not their Canadian paperwork. Apparantly they would have had no problem heading north of the border this time around, but it’s coming back into the States that could be dicey, and they just can’t afford to risk it. They’re rightly bummed about missing Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and you can thank our overly-strict American government for the mess. ‘Cuz you just gotta be cautious when it comes to those crazy Norwegian musical terrorists, right?

~~Here’s~~ Here was Serena Maneesh’s set from a couple weeks back…