The Mantles
All Odds End
SLUMBERLAND
7/10
Much has been made of the recent Bay-to-LA artist migration, but when it comes to the ebb and flow of scenes, you can either uproot and move with the tide, or stick to the rocks and wait it out. The Mantles, content with the bigger picture, are playing starfish out in Oakland, and have committed themselves to a slow but steady output of charismatic jangle rock spangled by a perennially underground status. Three albums (and one EP) in, the band is owning that status, and rather than saying “Hello,” or shouting “What We Do Matters,” as they have done in the past, frontman Michael Olivares spends most of their latest LP—All Odds End—muttering grandly about the poetic emptiness of it all. Scene is irrelevant on this album, as it should be on any exceptional release. Forget all that. “No matter how savage the chaos gets / Eternity will always calm it down,” sings Olivares on “Island.” The only thing that matters is: here we are.
