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Recent Press For MIG + I Can't Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing
If Bikini Kill and Sonic Youth had procreated, the frantic infant might sound like this female-fronted, Brooklyn-bred noisy quintet. It's taken the band nearly five years to transform their sound into the edgy, indie-punk showcase on their debut full-length, I Can't Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing. The end result is a blend of punchy guitar-pop lines and dissonant, wailing harmonies, all pitted against the raw, energetic vocals of singer Tina DaCosta. With each track almost exploding into the next ("Sleeping" to "Stranded") and the occasional reprieve ("Crawl"), Man in Gray attempts to modernize the once-cherished, now wheezing art-punk vibe.
- CMJ New Music Report
Man in Gray is a gritty, dancey local rock quintet driven by vocalist Tina DaCosta's impressively forceful and melodic delivery. The quintet has honed quite the rollicking live show over the past few years, and it's managed to capture that energy on its album, I Can't Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing.
- Time Out New York
"Last Night's Party" -- Sleater-Kinney meets Bikini Kill meets you rocking out.
- NY Post / Best Songs To Download From 2007
1. Don't let the title fool you; though at times its lyrics wax poetic, [I Can't Sleep...] is not an emo record. Rather, it borrows from many (non-emo) genres that maybe shouldn't work together but do. From the rapidly swirling psych riffs of 'If You Ride It to the End, You'll Get What You Came For', the Pixies-esque guitar line of 'Sleeping', and the blues-rock chorus of 'Stranded', this album incorporates everything you like about rock and roll into a seamless, danceable whole. The best songs feature an unlikely marriage of driving shoegaze beats with stretches of rapid fire noise that remind us there's a connection between punk and post-punk...
2. Man In Gray's post-punk is pretty impressive - as reminiscent of crackly old Velvets records as it is of noisy, Sonic Youth-type stuff and gritty, Stooges-style punk.
- L Magazine
Man in Gray have been gigging around the city for several years now, treating audiences to political screeds like "Incommunicado" (hailed by the Village Voice's Chuck Eddy as one of the top ten tracks of 2003) off of various EPs. This year, however, the Brooklyn quintet released their debut full-length, and it was well worth the wait. "I Can't Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing" may feature a glimmering cityscape and flowy script on its cover, but within is some of the most blistering rock you'll hear all year. The band is clearly interested in artful contrasts, as one nimble, melodic guitar intertwines with a ferocious one. Meanwhile, the vocals alternate between the soft whisper and fierce wail of one Tina DaCosta, a pretty but tough rock chick often found in ripped fishnets. Shades of Karen O? Sure, and a few other of your favorite rock bands (the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Sleater-Kinney, to name a few). Comparisons aside, this is serious business: Don't sleep on these local veterans.
- Metromix New York
[90/100] Finally a band I can judge on sexiness instead of thinking about which boy my sister would most likely want to make out with. Sometimes her taste can be extremely suspect.
- ChartAttack.com / North By Northeast Report Card
While Man In Gray makes an engaging listen, it doesn't make good driving music. Their keen use of dynamics lends to erratic acceleration and unexpected slowing that, while difficult to perceive from the driver's seat, draws the attention of law enforcement and the ire of fellow commuters. It's a propellant brand of indie punk (formerly known as alternative/post punk/pomo/ shut it.) The prepubescent absence of fuzz coupled with an advanced species of chords brings to mind Television. Clean, cool, ovular guitar lines delivered by someone who obviously knows their way around a fretboard, but refuses to showboat. They do like the wall of sound scrubbing, but with the reverb knocked off. Drummer Jeremiah McVay isn't averse to toms, (yay) nor afraid to rush when required. (hoo-ray). The ebullient Christina DaCosta sings, shouts and screams with massive personality, moving from innocent waif to crazy drunken girlfriend with the ease of The Avengers' Penelope Houston. The title track lifts discordant boy/girl harmonies from X. Everything is presented empathetically with an accessible artiness - the kind that makes you want to make art yourself, not make the scene sipping cosmos (or whatever the current haughty girly drink is.)
- Hybrid Magazine
Behind all the racket of dueling guitars (one pretty, one raunchy), jackhammer drumming, and DaCosta's screaming are well crafted pop songs that are both smart and anthemic. It's just that the speed and passion of Man In Gray's playing style has rendered those songs as sweaty, punk-infused dance chants that endure melodic breakdowns and unadulterated rocker chick bravado. [...] So as you move your feet to the dance heavy mixture of songs of men, women, growing discontent, politics, and commuting you can envision just where the Brooklyn based band is coming from. The metropolitan griminess permeates the sound with Man In Gray as the band you'd see at a damp, dank, clove-smoke infested back alley bar. Songs like "If You Ride It To The End, You'll Get What You Come For" and "Sleeping" best represent the bands antsy brand of noise rock.
- Treble Zine
Despite constantly getting lumped into the Brooklyn hipster pile (which is kind of a backwards complement to these folks in all seriousness), Man In Gray's razor sharp indie rock guitarwork and blissful noise rock detours set this resilient NYC outfit light years ahead of their peers while helping to excavate this quintet from the rest of the self-important pack's avalanche with the quickness. I CAN'T SLEEP UNLESS I HEAR YOU BREATHING is this female-fronted unit's latest exercise in punk-spirited, multi-influenced rawk, a 11-track affair whose atmospheric post-punk and swirling melodic overtones would remind you of Sonic Youth going toe to toe with The Pretenders on cuts like the sinewy "Stranded", the diminishing "Commodity 2?, or the stoned shoegazing vibe radiated from "Fault Lines." Fortified with their not-so-secret weapon vocalist Tina DaCosta, whose powerful presence and undeniable pipes assist the twin guitar freakouts on "Bad Mood" and stand on their own convincingly on "Sleeping," ICSUIHYB engages the listener with this group's dazzling array of danceable discord and well-textured dissonance.
- Mike SOS (syndicated badass)
"If You Ride It Till The End, You'll Get What You Came For" isn't just the opening track on Brooklyn combo Man In Gray's first full length. It's a dare, a foreshadowing statement on the spastic post-punk that's still to come on the record. And for these guys, the cherry on top is clearly vocalist Tina DaCosta and her alternately graceful and gravely wail. I Can't Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing walks the line between jagged rock-n-roll and revivalist new wave by pairing its clean sounds with what is much more apparent, its clear chaos. "Stranded" starts with straightforward, crisp guitars. But it builds darker as DaCosta hisses lines such as "Where can you go where people stay the same? It's not an easy place. It isn't anywhere." "Fault Lines," meanwhile, offers up its grating guitars at the onset, and DaCosta sneers and howls like a disciple of Karen O. Of course, she talks pretty the next, just to keep us on the balls of our heels. "Crawl" wanders on in weird sci-fi fashion for more than a minute before the song finds its fragile structure. Turns out it was just waiting to be bent and broken by Man in Gray guitarists Jeremy Joseph and Bryan Bruchman. It goes on like this. Dizzying, aching, and unpredictable, I Can't Sleep continues to reveal one surprise after another. And that means something in a New York City indie scene that sometimes seems more predictable than what's going on in the flyover states.
- Detour
Man In Gray come out with guns blazing on their debut LP I Can't Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing. The album is paced at break neck speed, with their furiously frantic songs taking a nice neat album and thrusting it into near chaos. It's probably the fastest album on this entire list because its a fairly long record, but when you're listening to it it just seems to fly past you. Of course this is all led by the screaming yells of their front woman, and the quick rhythms and tempo changes found throughout the music. These are the kind of tunes that should get people going nuts in a small sweaty venue, which is some of the most fun and exciting music out there!
- Pop Tarts Suck Toasted1. And Man in Gray, well, Man in Gray fucking destroy. Enough said. They brought the harDCore out in everyone in the crowd, busting eardrums and speakers along the way. Frontwoman Tina DaCosta was so impressive as she battered away that we think we saw the walls sweat. For reals.
2. Scream, scream, scream, beat, beat, beat, stop, breath, breath, scream, scream, destroy. This is what goes on in your head when you are trying to figure out how to best describe one of New York City's best kept post-punk-destructo secrets, Man in Gray. The group, piling guitar on top of guitar on top of drums (lots of fucking drums) and helmed by the pout, yelp and scream of frontwoman (and battering ram) Tina DaCosta, create the kind of bed of noise and reverb and chug that we here at the culture of me would never shy away from laying in...
- The Culture Of Me