| Paul Draper — Spooky Action (Deluxe Edition) (Aug 11, 2017) |
Paul Draper — Spooky Action (Deluxe Edition) (Aug 11, 2017) 
→↔★ Singer, songwriter, and multi~instrumentalist best known as the lead vocalist with the British rock band Mansun.
Birth name: Paul Edward Draper
Born: 26 September 1970, Liverpool, England
Location: Liverpool, England
Album release: Aug 11, 2017
Record Label: KScope
Duration: 84:06
Tracks:
01. Don’t Poke the Bear 6:48
02. Grey House 4:43
03. Things People Want 3:58
04. Who Is Wearing the Trousers 4:45
05. Jealousy Is a Powerful Emotion 5:39
06. Friends Make the Worst Enemies 6:49
07. Feeling My Heart Run Slow 4:26
08. You Don’t Really Know Someone, Til You Fall out with Th 5:35
09. Can’t Get Fairer Than That 3:13
10. Feel Like I Wanna Stay 2:45
11. The Inner Wheel 5:22
12. The Silence Is Deafening 3:48
13. No Ideas 5:29
14. F.M.H.R.S. (The Twilight Sad Remix) 5:08
15. Don’t You Wait, It Might Never Come 3:52
16. Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid 2:38
17. Friends Make the Worst Enemies (Acoustic) 4:58
18. Friends Make the Worst Enemies (Public Service Broadcasting Remix) 4:10
℗ 2017 Kscope, a division of Snapper Music plc
→↔★ Includes — 44 Page Booklet, Spooky Action CD, Outtakes CD, Spooky Action DVD incl. 5.1 mix of the album and the making of Spooky Action short film.
→↔★ Twenty years used to be a long time in rock’n’roll. But although it’s been that long since Mansun released their debut album Attack Of The Grey Lantern, described by their frontman/main songwriter Paul Draper as “half a concept album — a con album”, the passionate following the shape~shifting, eccentric Chester quartet attracted back then is still looking out for them. It was a hard core of those mad~for~it Mansunites that launched a Facebook petition four years ago demanding that Draper finally do the decent thing and finish his long~postponed solo debut, demos and ideas for which had been floating around since his old band called it a day in 2003.
Deluxe boxset edition of Mansun frontman Paul Draper’s highly anticipated 2017 solo album debut.
Review
By Ian King / 04 AUGUST 2017, 09:30 BST / Score: 7.5
→↔★ Two decades after Mansun’s debut album disoriented post~peak Britpop, Paul Draper has proven with Spooky Action that he still doesn’t do things by half measures.
→↔★ Judging by some of the 20th anniversary write~ups that appeared on the Internet earlier this year, it seems that even after all this time some folks are still figuring out what to make of Attack of the Grey Lantern. The hammering guitars and looping beats of their easily enjoyable early singles “Skin Up Pin Up” and “Take it Easy Chicken” were so quickly replaced with prog~ish ambitions that people had little time to adjust. Yet even that record was relatively straightforward compared to what was to come. Six may have been rushed into existence the following year, but imagine how many other twists and turns might have been crammed in there if they had even more time.
→↔★ Spooky Action finally arises from significantly different circumstances. Without the encouragement of that online petition from fans, Draper might still be stewing over this therapeutically purging rock opera about friends, business and betrayal. Song titles read like self~help revelations — “Jealousy is a Powerful Emotion”, “Friends Make the Worst Enemies”, “You Don’t Really Know Someone ‘Til You Fall Out With Them” — and, as Draper recently revealed, the album is indeed very much a part of a long healing process. Though he remains conspicuously quiet for the first three minutes of the space~chase~sequence opener “Don’t Poke The Bear”, once he finally lets loose he rarely lets up.
→↔★ Amidst a pop landscape of trained professionals and unadventurous indie vocalists, a set of pipes like Draper’s stands out even more now than it did in the late 90s. Spooky Action is as dense and detailed as his former band’s best known work, but song for song he picks one mode and more or less sticks to it, setting up a more reasonable barrier to entry. Familiar flashes appear, like a trace of “Legacy” lingering in the chorus of “Things People Want”, but Spooky Action’s dislocation is its comfort zone. →↔★ https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/
→↔★ “...his artistic flame has been fully reignited.” — 8.5/10 The Line Of Best Fit
→↔★ Featuring the glistening synthetic soul single Things People Want and the warped voodoo~psych of Don’t Poke The Bear, lyrically Spooky Action is a brutally honest record — an autobiography set to captivating and addictive melodies.
→↔★ Taking its cue from Draper’s two EPs — recorded in collaboration with Catherine AD (The Anchoress) — and long time Mansun collaborator P Dub, the album’s massively varied tracks move from the warped rock’n’roll of Grey House” to the glorious widescreen analogue dream pop of Jealousy Is A Powerful Emotion.
→↔★ Spooky Action is Draper’s strongest, most consistent set of songs to date and represents a lifetime’s work condensed into 60 plus minutes of perfectly formed music.
→↔★ Deluxe 3 disc edition in 48 page hardback book, featuring the album on CD, a second disc of bonus material, and a DVD containing the album in 5.1 surround sound and high~res surround sound stereo, and a short documentary. The artwork is by Steve Stacey, whose previous clients include Calvin Harris, Manic Street Preachers, Circa Waves and Lou Reed.
About Paul Draper
→↔★ Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Paul Draper is best known as the lead vocalist with the popular British rock band Mansun. Playing smart hard rock with an ambitious outlook that found room for prog and glam influences, Mansun were a surprise success story on the British rock scene of the ‘90s. Draper was born in Liverpool, England on September 26, 1970, and began playing guitar when he was 15. Draper was attending Thames Polytechnic when he met Steve Heaton and Carlton Hibbert. The three formed a band called Grind; they released a 12” single, “Thought” b/w “The Dying Man,” in 1991, but it wasn’t a hit and the group soon split up. However, Draper and Hibbert would cross paths again when they joined forces with Dominic Chad, Stove King, and Mark Swinnerton to form Grey Lantern in 1995. Within months, the group had changed its name to Manson, and they independently released a debut single, “Take It Easy Chicken,” that had several major labels bidding for their services. After signing with Parlophone, Manson became Mansun, reportedly due to threatened legal action from Charles Manson.
→↔★ In early 1997, Mansun released their debut album, Attack of the Grey Lantern, which quickly rose to number one on the U.K. album chart (knocking Brit~pop heroes Blur out of the top spot), and the cult heroes became bona fide rock stars, at least in England. After Mansun’s eclectic and ambitious second album Six (1999) was a commercial disappointment, the band streamlined its sound on 2000’s Little Kix. While working on their fourth album, Draper was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as bowenoid malignancy. Draper responded well to chemotherapy, but by the time he was healthy enough to return to work on the project, Mansun had broken up and the album was scrapped. (With Draper’s participation, some of the tracks from the unfinished fourth album appeared on the 2004 box set Kleptomania.) After Mansun announced their breakup in 2003, Draper initially maintained a low profile in the music business. He co~wrote and co~produced a 2006 single for Skin, vocalist with Skunk Anansie, and returned to the producer’s chair for “Greyhounds in the Slips,” a digital single released by the Joy Formidable. Draper also spent several years working with singer and composer Catherine A.D. on a project called the Anchoress, with their first single appearing in 2014. In 2013, during a radio interview, Draper announced he had recorded demos for a possible solo album and that he might make them available to fans if they were interested. The response was strong, and several fans went so far as to create social media pages lobbying for the release of Draper’s recordings. In 2014, Draper appeared at a Mansun fan convention, and those in attendance heard a new track from him, “Feeling My Heart Run Slow.” Two years later, Draper announced that he had signed with Kscope Records, and that he would be bringing out his first solo release, EP One, in June 2016. ~ Mark Deming
→↔★
Label: http://www.kscopemusic.com/
Website: https://pauldraper.tmstor.es/
Website: http://pauldraperofficial.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulDraper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pauldraperofficial/
Mansun studio albums: Attack of the Grey Lantern / Six / Little Kix / Kleptomania
_____________________________________________________________
| Paul Draper — Spooky Action (Deluxe Edition) (Aug 11, 2017) |
Birth name: Paul Edward Draper
Born: 26 September 1970, Liverpool, England
Location: Liverpool, England
Album release: Aug 11, 2017
Record Label: KScope
Duration: 84:06
Tracks:
01. Don’t Poke the Bear 6:48
02. Grey House 4:43
03. Things People Want 3:58
04. Who Is Wearing the Trousers 4:45
05. Jealousy Is a Powerful Emotion 5:39
06. Friends Make the Worst Enemies 6:49
07. Feeling My Heart Run Slow 4:26
08. You Don’t Really Know Someone, Til You Fall out with Th 5:35
09. Can’t Get Fairer Than That 3:13
10. Feel Like I Wanna Stay 2:45
11. The Inner Wheel 5:22
12. The Silence Is Deafening 3:48
13. No Ideas 5:29
14. F.M.H.R.S. (The Twilight Sad Remix) 5:08
15. Don’t You Wait, It Might Never Come 3:52
16. Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid 2:38
17. Friends Make the Worst Enemies (Acoustic) 4:58
18. Friends Make the Worst Enemies (Public Service Broadcasting Remix) 4:10
℗ 2017 Kscope, a division of Snapper Music plc
→↔★ Includes — 44 Page Booklet, Spooky Action CD, Outtakes CD, Spooky Action DVD incl. 5.1 mix of the album and the making of Spooky Action short film.
→↔★ Twenty years used to be a long time in rock’n’roll. But although it’s been that long since Mansun released their debut album Attack Of The Grey Lantern, described by their frontman/main songwriter Paul Draper as “half a concept album — a con album”, the passionate following the shape~shifting, eccentric Chester quartet attracted back then is still looking out for them. It was a hard core of those mad~for~it Mansunites that launched a Facebook petition four years ago demanding that Draper finally do the decent thing and finish his long~postponed solo debut, demos and ideas for which had been floating around since his old band called it a day in 2003.
Deluxe boxset edition of Mansun frontman Paul Draper’s highly anticipated 2017 solo album debut.
Review
By Ian King / 04 AUGUST 2017, 09:30 BST / Score: 7.5
→↔★ Two decades after Mansun’s debut album disoriented post~peak Britpop, Paul Draper has proven with Spooky Action that he still doesn’t do things by half measures.
→↔★ Judging by some of the 20th anniversary write~ups that appeared on the Internet earlier this year, it seems that even after all this time some folks are still figuring out what to make of Attack of the Grey Lantern. The hammering guitars and looping beats of their easily enjoyable early singles “Skin Up Pin Up” and “Take it Easy Chicken” were so quickly replaced with prog~ish ambitions that people had little time to adjust. Yet even that record was relatively straightforward compared to what was to come. Six may have been rushed into existence the following year, but imagine how many other twists and turns might have been crammed in there if they had even more time.
→↔★ Spooky Action finally arises from significantly different circumstances. Without the encouragement of that online petition from fans, Draper might still be stewing over this therapeutically purging rock opera about friends, business and betrayal. Song titles read like self~help revelations — “Jealousy is a Powerful Emotion”, “Friends Make the Worst Enemies”, “You Don’t Really Know Someone ‘Til You Fall Out With Them” — and, as Draper recently revealed, the album is indeed very much a part of a long healing process. Though he remains conspicuously quiet for the first three minutes of the space~chase~sequence opener “Don’t Poke The Bear”, once he finally lets loose he rarely lets up.
→↔★ Amidst a pop landscape of trained professionals and unadventurous indie vocalists, a set of pipes like Draper’s stands out even more now than it did in the late 90s. Spooky Action is as dense and detailed as his former band’s best known work, but song for song he picks one mode and more or less sticks to it, setting up a more reasonable barrier to entry. Familiar flashes appear, like a trace of “Legacy” lingering in the chorus of “Things People Want”, but Spooky Action’s dislocation is its comfort zone. →↔★ https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/
→↔★ “...his artistic flame has been fully reignited.” — 8.5/10 The Line Of Best Fit
→↔★ Featuring the glistening synthetic soul single Things People Want and the warped voodoo~psych of Don’t Poke The Bear, lyrically Spooky Action is a brutally honest record — an autobiography set to captivating and addictive melodies.
→↔★ Taking its cue from Draper’s two EPs — recorded in collaboration with Catherine AD (The Anchoress) — and long time Mansun collaborator P Dub, the album’s massively varied tracks move from the warped rock’n’roll of Grey House” to the glorious widescreen analogue dream pop of Jealousy Is A Powerful Emotion.
→↔★ Spooky Action is Draper’s strongest, most consistent set of songs to date and represents a lifetime’s work condensed into 60 plus minutes of perfectly formed music.
→↔★ Deluxe 3 disc edition in 48 page hardback book, featuring the album on CD, a second disc of bonus material, and a DVD containing the album in 5.1 surround sound and high~res surround sound stereo, and a short documentary. The artwork is by Steve Stacey, whose previous clients include Calvin Harris, Manic Street Preachers, Circa Waves and Lou Reed.
About Paul Draper
→↔★ Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Paul Draper is best known as the lead vocalist with the popular British rock band Mansun. Playing smart hard rock with an ambitious outlook that found room for prog and glam influences, Mansun were a surprise success story on the British rock scene of the ‘90s. Draper was born in Liverpool, England on September 26, 1970, and began playing guitar when he was 15. Draper was attending Thames Polytechnic when he met Steve Heaton and Carlton Hibbert. The three formed a band called Grind; they released a 12” single, “Thought” b/w “The Dying Man,” in 1991, but it wasn’t a hit and the group soon split up. However, Draper and Hibbert would cross paths again when they joined forces with Dominic Chad, Stove King, and Mark Swinnerton to form Grey Lantern in 1995. Within months, the group had changed its name to Manson, and they independently released a debut single, “Take It Easy Chicken,” that had several major labels bidding for their services. After signing with Parlophone, Manson became Mansun, reportedly due to threatened legal action from Charles Manson.
→↔★ In early 1997, Mansun released their debut album, Attack of the Grey Lantern, which quickly rose to number one on the U.K. album chart (knocking Brit~pop heroes Blur out of the top spot), and the cult heroes became bona fide rock stars, at least in England. After Mansun’s eclectic and ambitious second album Six (1999) was a commercial disappointment, the band streamlined its sound on 2000’s Little Kix. While working on their fourth album, Draper was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as bowenoid malignancy. Draper responded well to chemotherapy, but by the time he was healthy enough to return to work on the project, Mansun had broken up and the album was scrapped. (With Draper’s participation, some of the tracks from the unfinished fourth album appeared on the 2004 box set Kleptomania.) After Mansun announced their breakup in 2003, Draper initially maintained a low profile in the music business. He co~wrote and co~produced a 2006 single for Skin, vocalist with Skunk Anansie, and returned to the producer’s chair for “Greyhounds in the Slips,” a digital single released by the Joy Formidable. Draper also spent several years working with singer and composer Catherine A.D. on a project called the Anchoress, with their first single appearing in 2014. In 2013, during a radio interview, Draper announced he had recorded demos for a possible solo album and that he might make them available to fans if they were interested. The response was strong, and several fans went so far as to create social media pages lobbying for the release of Draper’s recordings. In 2014, Draper appeared at a Mansun fan convention, and those in attendance heard a new track from him, “Feeling My Heart Run Slow.” Two years later, Draper announced that he had signed with Kscope Records, and that he would be bringing out his first solo release, EP One, in June 2016. ~ Mark Deming
→↔★
Label: http://www.kscopemusic.com/
Website: https://pauldraper.tmstor.es/
Website: http://pauldraperofficial.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulDraper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pauldraperofficial/
Mansun studio albums: Attack of the Grey Lantern / Six / Little Kix / Kleptomania
_____________________________________________________________