Not too long after coming together in 2003, the Mannequin Men had earned the title of Chicago's drunkest, snottiest, and most amp-ruining band. These qualities contributed heavily to them also being hailed by many as the best thing in town. Live, they're a reckless,giddy maelstrom of slashing guitars, primal screams, and spilled drinks. Guitarists Kevin Richard and Ethan D'Ercole (also of the Watchers) spit out spiky riffs like they were throwing off sparks over bassist Rick Berger and drummer Seth Bohn's thunderous rhythmic stomp, while Richard howls about nasty girls and nastier boys. At an average show, the band inspires their audience to crush together in sweating, ecstatic surge. At a really good one--and most of them are really, really good--it's bruises and blackouts all around.

The Mannequin Men's recordings prove that they've got the talent to make such a spectacle of themselves without the risk of being labeled a novelty act or one trick pony. Recorded at their loft in one day, their self-released debut album, Showbiz Witch, was a blistering, dirty blast of rock that inspired far-out rock and roll fantasies to explain it: the Wipers running over the Clean with dune buggies, Black Flag doing something terribly wrong to Tommy James & the Shondells, Oasis if they weren't such pussies. Songs like "Liar" and "Spiders in the Hallway" are brutally infectious, with deep hooks that will latch on to you and drag you across the room.

Being the bunch of hyperactive geniuses that they are, the MMs had hardly gotten done with Showbiz Witch when new songs started showing up on their setlists. Within a couple of months most of the Showbiz Witch had been replaced with a new flavor of Mannequin Men joints that incorporated a new strain of glammy swagger, while still keeping the "gnarliness" and "punk" knobs dimed. This is the material that would make up their first album for Flameshovel, Fresh Rot. The Nevermind to Showbiz Witch's Bleach, Fresh Rot captures a band breaking through the barrier between "awesome" and "unbelievable."

The songs are more complex and span a wider conceptual range than before--even ducking into ballad territory with the jangly, Velvet-y "22nd Century"--without sacrificing any of the fiery 'tude that the band runs on. Album opener "Private School" is classic Man Men, a nasty post-grunge gem that has Richard spitting out invective ,while the instruments run up and down in the classic quiet-loud-quiet style, before the song explodes into the chorus as anthemic as anything that Seattle ever produced. "The Boys" refracts ragged garage rock through punk-ish angularity and draws a heavy line between the Stones and Wire. "Pigpen" recasts the 60s dance-craze song format as an angsty essay on uptight people who can't get laid. Over the course of the album they chew up and spit out influences from enough bands to stock a record store, but they make each strain of rock and roll they pull into their orbit comes out as something
uniquely Mannequin Men.

Fresh Rot is a pile-up of the best moments from 50 years of rock music, it's the tranformative step where a good band starts sounding like a great band, and an electrifying promise of more brilliance to come. Listen to it loud, and listen to it often.