Mansun Discography Part Five: Five EP - She Makes My Nose Bleed

Okay well this was the last of Mansun's EPs to come out before their debut album, and indeed it acted as a sort of trailer, coming out 2 weeks before, and becoming their first top ten hit, shooting up at number 9 in its first week. It was released on 2 CDs, 7" and tape (oh happy days of multi-formatting). She Makes My Nose Bleed is the bands attempt to mix a little rock and hiphop, so it's got some amateurish beats leaping about here and there, but otherwise it's not that different from their other singles at the time. Some very nice little riffs going on throughout, and a fine fine vocal, despite it sounding a little like Oasis during the main chorus part. The lyrics are as obtuse as ever, but work pretty well in a general rock and roll desire-for-female mode. It also features (as many other Mansun songs also do) a string section used for dramatic rather than pathetic purposes. No whiney Embrace style anthemism, just over the top operatic slashing about.


The bsides on the first CD start off with The Most To Gain, which also carries on the beat driven thing but never really gets going enough to be particularly memorable. Decent enough, but still filler. Flourella however, which was already released as one side of the bands first double Aside along with Skinup Pinup, is a fine fine fine rock number with distortovision vocals, fucking great building verses, and what seems like about five different choruses. Probably a great live number, but as I never got to see them i'll never know. Damn my thirteen year old eyes. Probably one of my favourite Mansun bsides and it's surprising it never got onto an album. It's longish for a midpaced rocker (four and a half minutes) but doesn't outstay its welcome one teensy bit. CD one finishes up with a nice acoustic version of the title track. Nothing special or different, but good stuff nevertheless due to the lovely recording and an understated intensity.


Cd two's bsides start with The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, which is just as moody as you'd expect from the title. Good atmospherics, inspiring hints of things to come. Actually it reminds me of Antichrist-era Mazza Manson, in the best possible way. Apparently co-written by guitarist Chad (who helps with the singing), it has some grrrrreat riff moments and Draper pulls off the wannabe-messiah Julian Cope thing rather well. We finish up with a couple of live tracks; first up a runthrough of past bside Drastic Sturgeon, which isn't really improved that well in a live settng, but at least the guitars cover up the lyrics a bit. After that it's a goodish live runthrough of Wide Open Space, and we're done. Conclusions? A goodish EP, with a couple of stunners.

Mansun - 01 She Makes My Nose Bleed
Mansun - 02 The Most To Gain
Mansun - 03 Flourella
Mansun - 04 The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail
Mansun - 05 Drastic Sturgeon (live)
Mansun - 06 Live Open Space
Mansun - 07 She Makes My Nose Bleed (acoustic)