More often than not, you can find major-label quality talent on
\nlabels you’ve probably never heard of. Count Munkafust among those
\nbands whom you’re probably not familiar with… but if there’s a
\nGod above, you will soon.<\/p>\n
Veterans of the indie-rock scene, their latest disc
\nDown For Days<\/i> is a solid effort showing off this band’s good
\nchops and songwriting – only to fumble the ball at the end zone.
\nBut more on that in a moment.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist\/guitarist Evan Brau, guitarist Tony Gray,
\nbassist\/vocalist Jens Funke and drummer Matt Rimer – seems to be a
\ncross between light reggae (a la The Police) and the pop
\nsensability of the BoDeans. They’re a group who show that not only
\nare they having fun with the music, but they’re not above poking
\nfun at their own fate. (The cover art illustrates the fire which
\ngutted their tour van… but left the band uninjured.)<\/p>\n
The first time I ever heard Munkafust’s music, I had been
\nlistening to a different disc, and the automatic changer went to
\nDown For Days<\/i>, the next disc in line. Within the first 30
\nseconds of the opening track “Control Of My Heart,” I had stopped
\ndead in my tracks, and found myself wondering who these guys were,
\nand why I hadn’t dug this disc out of the “To Be Reviewed” pile
\nsooner.<\/p>\n
“Control Of My Heart” is just a hint of things to come on
\nDown For Days<\/i>, as Munkafust absolutely shines throughout
\nmost of this album. When you hear songs like “Feel My Pulse,” “Gave
\nIt A Try” and the title track, you can’t help but wonder why these
\nguys have languished in semi-obscurity while so many other bands
\nwith less than half the talent top the charts. Even when the band
\nshows a sly sense of humor (as they do on “Yeah Yo” and “Bank
\nAccount”), they make things sound like this was all part of the big
\nplan.<\/p>\n
But when you get to the final two tracks of this disc, that’s
\nwhen the bottom drops out. After eight songs with some real
\nsubstance to them, Munkafust regresses into songs about
\nrelationships from hell (“Psycho,” with a reference of… well,
\nhaving a little taken off the tip) and being stuck in a party with
\nno women (“Helmet Party”, with a sample line: “Sausage to my left,
\nand sausage to my right”). These songs do nothing more than remind
\nthe listener that Munkafust was first a party band, and they seem
\nto be having problems separating from their roots. I have no
\nproblem in general with songs like this, but coming off eight
\nsemi-serious tracks, these are anti-climactic.<\/p>\n
It’s a shame that Munkafust makes such a mistake to close
\nDown For Days<\/i>, as the bulk of this album is absolutely
\nphenomenal. These guys have obviously spent lots of time in the
\ntrenches working on their craft, and musically, the end result is
\npleasantly obvious. If they re-focus their attention a little bit
\nmore, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll be hearing Munkafust
\nmaking a big noise very soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6433],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36791","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-munkafust","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36791"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36791"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}