Serena Maneesh October 5, 2006

Doted upon and very well received, Norway's Serena Maneesh have recently issued their debut longplayer, an album of, according to the label, "distortion and pop whimsy, raucous guitar work and underwater static, angelic voices and primal screams." The press has come out large, with Pitchfork commenting "they get it", while The Guardian remarks "blissed-out nostalgia for blissed-out nostalgia rock works fine here." Although they existed for a couple of years beforehand, Bardo Pond was christened with a name near the end of '91. Their method of working is discovery through improvisation, then remembering, recreating, practicing. Sometimes a tune continues mutating, yet still retains the basic shape of its original conception. Many tunes intentionally open up for lengthy exploratory passages. While they've established themselves as the premiere lurching noisemakers, with their new record they've created something so utterly expanse, so ponderously beautiful, it could be argued all their past work merely exists as a build up to this release. The band has always worked by using sludge to their advantage, but never has it been fashioned to such mastery.