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Soul Manifest, White Season: What the Rain Leaves Behind

Released earlier this year on Night Tripper Records, White Season is the debut from French (since relocated to London) psych rock foursome Soul Manifest. Led by guitarist/vocalist Romain Daut, the band work their way through a smattering of semi-retro influences, and though I wouldn’t be the first to relate their sound to the already-influential Swedes in Graveyard, there’s more happening on White Season than copycatting the moves of others. Soul Manifest – thanks in large part to the organ contributions of Harry Backhouse – carve out an identity that’s at once familiar and still nuanced. The interplay between Daut, drummer Karen Jones and bassist Sammy Deveille, both of whom also share vocal duties, introduces an engaging songwriting process that’s bound to win (or have won, since as I noted, the album’s been out for a while already) Soul Manifest some friends. Classic heavy prog is a decent place from which to start an understanding, but a more modern take à la the new school of European psych (My Sleeping Karma particularly) is woven in as well, so that White Season works as a blend of styles within the genre. There are parts of eight tracks/39 minutes that are more easily read than others, but by and large, the record is accessible, cohesive and diverse without being overly indulgent or showy in terms of performance.

Again, a big part of Soul Manifest’s personality as presented here comes in Backhouse’s organ. From the launch of opener “Dead Man” to the genuine organ solos on “White Season (Part I),” “Devil’s Meeting” and the for-all-intents-and-purposes closer “The Light” – where they’re set against Daut’s guitar for the album’s best duel – it’s Backhouse that separates Soul Manifest most from the horde of retro clone acts. That’s not to say Daut’s guitars or the grooves put to tape by Jones and Deveille don’t have their role to play, just that it’s the keys that wind up the most distinctive element. White Season opens strong with “Dead Man” and “White Season (Part I)” as a duo, but it’s not until later that the full breadth of their personality becomes clear. The acoustic-led “Do We Have the Same View” finds Daut no less confident on vocals for the change in approach on guitar and the lack of platform for the swagger he brings in elsewhere, and the darker beginning of “Devil’s Meeting,” which rounds out side A of the vinyl, adds a surprising turn that brings to mind the likes of Black Widow, Coven or any of the other ritualistic prog acts lurking around the early part of the ‘70s. True to the form of those bands, the actual sound Soul Manifest work with on “Devil’s Meeting” doesn’t conform to what we’d now expect from a track with that name, keeping instead to a bluesy progression that lets Daut’s solo shine around the song’s halfway point, maybe also touching on some of the same country/western feel that Astrosoniq play with from time to time. He and Backhouse trade leads and it works well, showing also that neither is so wrapped in ego as to try and dominate the other.

Side B opens with “White Season (Part II),” which reinterprets the moves from “Part I” on acoustic guitar and organ backed by Jones’ stylized toms. Where “Do We Have the Same View” was in a similar mood, “White Season (Part II)” takes more time to develop, fading out and then back around two minutes in to begin its progression anew, eventually bringing Daut in on vocals atop what might be Deveille’s best bass performance, and introducing distorted guitar for the last 30 seconds of the song. It never quite picks up enough to be considered a payoff – or doesn’t sustain the peak of its build long enough, anyway – but at least it shows Soul Manifest know that a song like that needs to lead somewhere. The Deep Purple riffing of “All but My Dreams Can be Erased by the Rain” (think “Fireball” from the album of the same name) provides ample energy boost anyway, Backhouse working in defiance of the comparison by bringing in piano instead of organ sounds, but nonetheless serving the track best. At just under six minutes, “All but My Dreams Can be Erased by the Rain” is one of the longer cuts on White Season, but even that is trumped by “The Light” (9:48), which marks both the most present backing vocals, the largest expanse and the most progressive song on the album. It meanders early, but near its midpoint moves into mathematical-sounding starts and stops backed by psychedelic swirls and noises, and just when you think that’s going to ride Soul Manifest through to the end of the record, the movement devolves into just Jones on the drums before kicking back in with a raucous finale.

Though one of the most Graveyard-esque snippets of White Season, that finale would nonetheless be a fitting close, but Soul Manifest make their outro with “Who’s the Rock ‘n’ Rolla??” which is 33 seconds of looping, sampled bong hitting and finally the titular question itself, followed by echoing laughter. Kind of a curious way to go out, since after the seven tracks preceding, it’s abundantly clear who the rock and rollers are, but I won’t begrudge Soul Manifest a last-minute bit of fun, since they obviously put so much into the construction of White Season. The album is more straightforward and structured than a lot of heavy psych coming out of the European scene these days, but Soul Manifest’s clarity of ideas is also one of their strong points. They have growing to do, stylistically and in terms of making their parts flow from one to the next more fluidly, but they make a solid first impression with White Season and give themselves a foundation on which to build going forward.

Soul Manifest on Thee Facebooks

Night Tripper Records

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