Manhattan is the debut long-player from the New York City-based outfit Skaters. Due to its swagger and big-label push, it’ll undoubtedly divide audiences like Hipster Moses. Far from a groundbreaking album, it does hold a few strong moments, though in the end it’s not enough to keep the record from registering as a mild disappointment.
I must confess that as I began chalking-up a fair amount of time listening to Manhattan my mind started to wander a bit. Thoughts initially turned to the general health of contemporary rock ‘n’ roll, but it wasn’t long before I was mulling over the band’s point of origin. A few spins later and I was struck like a bolt from the blue by another Manhattan, specifically the 1979 film directed by Woody Allen.
One of Allen’s biggest successes, the movie is also sometimes described as amongst his most charming, though it’s also not without potentially alienating undercurrents; it’s about a group of humans, most in some way artistically inclined and therefore also harboring varying states of emotional imperfection, living in one of civilization’s great metropolises.
Indeed, the cast frequently displays troubling and occasionally quite disturbing behavior, and does so very rapidly, in a span analogous to an LP’s opening track. And yet there’s such a grand sense of scale, as the succession of terrific shots accompanying the narration of Allen swiftly bloom into a gorgeous cityscape made even more beautiful with fireworks and the sounds of Gershwin, that when the film’s problematic characters are revealed the viewer’s resistance to them is, at least possibly, lessened.
“One of Us,” the first cut on Skaters’ Manhattan also wields the power to alienate. However, it achieves this in a considerably less ambitious way. More than once Skaters have been portrayed as garage-like, though they are better assessed as a highly polished melodic rock band that, it must be said, bares a more than passing resemblance to The Strokes.
While more than empty strutting, “One of Us” does bask in abundant surface flash. After a brief snippet of locale-specific subway ambiance combined with some rather rinky-dink electronic flavor, vocalist/songwriter Michael Ian Cummings rattles off a barrage of imagery designed to invoke life in the fast lane in NYC.
Furthermore, when tethered to his incessant repeating of the phrase “fun and games,” a hook delivered with just enough detachment to summon ambiguity for those who want it, it becomes clear fairly quickly that many detractors will (and in a few cases, already have) brand Skaters as style over substance.
But I tend to think that’s overreacting somewhat. Manhattan’s next two songs “Miss Teen Massachusetts” and “Deadbolt” find Skaters working up a solid if far from exceptional head of steam. Highlighted is the maximal production of John Hill; like The Strokes before them, I can’t bring myself to call this stuff garage. And to their credit, Skaters don’t either. They have cited a smattering of ‘70s/’80s acts as influences on this album, but the one that stuck with me was The Cars, though in addition to The Strokes one can fleetingly detect the impact of more recent names such as The Walkmen and Spoon.
Recorded at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, some will no doubt decry Skaters as reliant upon Hill in a manner similar to how many derided Allen’s Manhattan as being indebted to his cinematographer Gordon Willis. But like Willis, Hill’s input is an enhancer rather than an attempt to obscure weaknesses, amplifying instead of masking that the LP’s first three cuts are no big deal.
Through this trio of tunes Skaters settle into a groove. And with “Band Breaker,” they lob a substantial curveball, one that’s perhaps comparable to the unexpected and outstanding sequence in Allen’s film where he and Diane Keaton converse in the planetarium. For Skaters the upside is diversity. The downside is that the upside is reggae-rock.
Even when this oft-questionable genre hybrid manages to avoid the obnoxious or merely hackneyed, it generally ascends only so far on the ladder of quality, which is why it’s most effectively used as a sporadic digression. I’m thinking directly of Ted Leo, a suave gent that loves to skank it up but smartly resists doing so too often.
Skaters go to the well not once but twice on Manhattan, though the bigger problem is that of the three songs in between, one is no great shakes, one appeared as the title track to their prior EP (“Schemers”), and one is sturdy but less than mind-bending. The worst first; “To Be Young” aims large, striving for that lighters-aloft-and-ablaze-at-the-summer-festival vibe, but it mainly serves me as a reminder over why I’ve rarely listened to The Killers.
Because it focuses on rocking instead of stale sentiment, “Symptomatic” fares better. Its sound is the indie rock of roughly a decade ago, and in comparison to the style’s best from that period the song is a bit wanting. The guitar solo from Joshua Hubbard (ex-Paddingtons and Dirty Pretty Things) goes down pretty well, though.
“Schemers” is the best of Manhattan’s mid-section, and it’s no stumper why they chose to reprise it here. Same goes for “Fear of the Knife,” the second of the disc’s reggae informed cuts and the last of the carryovers from the EP. In terms of Jamaican roots-infusion it does happily recall the late-‘70s UK variety; on one hand not a shock since Hubbard hails from England, but on the other does underscore their stated ‘70s/’80s influences as more than just namedropping.
On the negative side, along with flaunting its electronic décor, “I Wanna Dance” is little more than a shift in dynamic at the expense of potent songwriting, and as the tune’s three minutes near conclusion it becomes borderline annoying. Much more interesting is the arty hardcore of “Nice Hat” and the post-punkish riff on Cheap Trick’s “He’s a Whore” that is closer “This Much I Care,” though I feel the need to add that Skaters should steer clear of any battle of the bands featuring Savages or OFF!
They should also resist dropping in extended audio segments of conversations with taxi drivers, but this particular indulgence is ultimately part of Manhattan’s basic idea: Skaters are in New York City and they kinda don’t like it but sometimes they do. So here’s 30 seconds of a banal cab ride chat, maybe proving that life in NYC can be as uneventful as existence 20 minutes outside of Omaha.
Haziness in conceptual execution doesn’t undo Skaters, but even with its handful of highpoints (“Schemers,” “Fear of the Knife,” “Nice Hat,” “This Much I Care”) mostly back-loaded in the running order, it still hovers perilously close to average. The issue isn’t originality; in the end Allen’s Manhattan, in many ways an extension of Nouvelle Vague director Eric Rohmer’s innovations, isn’t noted for being something new under the sun, especially near the end when Michael Murphy is lobbing softballs of dialogue in aid of the actor/director’s stream of shtick (and a magnificent visual gag.)
But when Allen is at his most referential he can still make one forget or at the very least value his connection to prior artists. Skaters’ nagging dilemma is that even their most inspired moments are attached to the lingering peripheral feeling that it’s been done already. And a whole lot better.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B-
