Any regular scanner of Charlottesville music listings already knows that Manorlady—a three-piece whose members claim to hail from the California desert—is one of our hardest working indie rock bands. What may not have been clear, until the release this week of a polished debut LP Home, is that they may be one of the best.
That’s what Manorlady sets out to prove on the ambitious, eclectic record, which touches on most shoegazey corners of the indie rock spectrum, from the warbly singalongs of Galaxie 500, to the huge guitars of My Bloody Valentine and brutal electronics of Big Black. (Listen to Home here; Manorlady releases it at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar on April 23.)
C-VILLE’s John Ruscher explores the band’s desert origins and current place in Charlottesville’s music landscape in tomorrow’s C-VILLE: "With Home, Manorlady recaptures the horizon of youth, but the band also maps its own unique peaks and valleys. As the album closes, going away and coming home seem to merge, an acknowledgment that leaving home is the start of creating a new one. For Manorlady that new nest is in Charlottesville, and the band has done a good job of building it so far. As the saying goes, home is where the heart is, and there’s definitely a lot of heart in Home."
What do you think of Manorlady’s new record?