Mansun Discography Part Two: Two EP - Take It Easy Chicken

Manun's rise was quite a quick one; only two and a bit months after their first EP, this second major release took them another 5 places up the singles chart, almost breaking the top 30 and pushing them even further into the indie limelight. Unfortunately the title track isn't that great, but it would later evolve into a great live showpiece and provide us with three more fun bsides.


Indeed Take It Easy gives us a Mansun who for some reason were still in thrall to the Roses and to other Baggie-ish early 90s influences. Indeed my girlfriend quite rudely told me that it sounded 'Like Kasabian, turn it off', and the awful thing was that she hit the mark quite well. It's got a great main riff, but the drums and bass really give it a Happy Mondays-esque funky feel that I don't think really suited the band. The vocals on the verses are a little painful, and only some nice guitar licks here and there and the nice shimmery guitar riff that jumps in during the chorus really do much for me. It seems to suffer slightly from something that a few of their songs did at points; heavy on the production but not on the hooks, thus Chicken's 4mins 31 is also a bit toooo long. Like Chicken, Drastic Sturgeon also starts with some very dated sounding dance beats before launching into an almost Stonesy boogie. The lyrics at the start are...well, so bad that they're actually sublimely awful. Pretty bad chorus on this one too, but for some reason the sheer energy and balls to the wallness of it endears me to it. Despite it sounding a bit like indie-also-also-also-rans Space. To quote a great film hero; 'They get better!' The Greatest Pain is muuuuuch better, a piano based ballad of sorts that slightly lets itself down with the almost cock-rock chorus, but is otherwise very enjoyable. Moronica reminds me a little of the early Manics (maybe its the backing vocals), and it's much in the same vein as the other three songs on the EP; heavyish, pretty glam and not quite as good as most of the stuff that would appear on the next two EPs or the record. Fun but inessential! But it does have a really nice acoustic coda! If you can stomach even more baggy badness/madness check out the Chicken music video. Oh dear.

Mansun - 01 Take It Easy Chicken Mansun - 02 Drastic Sturgeon Mansun - 03 The Greatest Pain Mansun - 04 Moronica