The new album of Men Among Animals

You get carried away

While the intro, Ceremonial Seating, is really taking you to another sphere of sounds, Menth Reloaded is just a jungle of groovy beats and breaks. It is kicking off with rather exotic drums, but soon is getting you with atmospheric parts. In the end, it is all being dubbed by electronic sounds that are really changing the song completely until it is suddenly just silent. Sunset and Titan is then taking you back from the electronic apocalypse to the mellow south seas atmosphere. They are really doing their name credit. Animalistic background vocals are creating weird choirs, everything combined with synthesizer beats and 80s-like percussion sounds. It is buzzing, it is squeaking and it is always going on. Men Among Animals really got that right. The last song on Run Ego, White, is a perfect example for that.

I am really connecting this with many things

It seems that, with the song Gavrilov, we finally came to the obligatory acoustic/sentimental track of the album. But in the middle of the song it really is starting to get more orchestral. It really reminds you of Shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain, sometimes even of Air with their characteristic instrumental parts. This song is just really good for the album and for the listener. You always have omnipresent singing, which is probably comparable with Isaac Brock’s voice of Modest Mouse, that is taking a back seat in the correct moments. Finally, with Count The Suckers and Catholic Way, we hear the most catchy songs of the album. They are just harmonic, joyful and all-around! Maybe they are not as fleet-footed as Vampire Weekend, but still very appealing in their very own way.

Where the wild things record

Last summer the five guys literally lived amongst animals. Run Ego recorded the album in a very remote cabin, somewhere in the wilderness. Maybe that’s the reason why the album became much more cheerless than the previous one, Bad Times, All Gone. But the melancholic and even a bit dangerous about the songs like Rewrite Yourself or Si Clara Tú is not as superficial as in songs like Sleep or the following track The Coast. Luckily the band really gets the balance of ups and downs of emotions and atmospheres right. That really makes Run Ego a classic album and not just a CD with a collection of disconnected songs. By the way, people say that Men Among Animals are also always really reinventing themselves during their concerts. We hope, that they will now get all the attention they deserve (and have deserved for quite a while now) ..

text by Eugen Braeunig