The Mantles - Long Enough to Leave (Slumberland)

Mainstays of the now seminal San Francisco garage rock scene that gave us Ty Segall, White Fence and Thee Oh Sees, Oakland’s The Mantles have expanded on the Nuggets-influenced protopunk fuzz of their debut album to incorporate more outside influences on new record Long Enough to Leave.

The first thing that strikes you as Long Enough to Leave plays is how familiar the whole thing sounds. Less in a lazily regurgitated way, more so in the sense of a record you might have heard growing up and never really appreciated. The loose jangle pop of songs like ‘Don’t Cross Town’ and album opener ‘Marbled Birds’ evoke the wistfulness of The Byrds psychedelia mixed with the youthful exuberance of 80s college rock. Singer Michael Olivares’ croon helps songs conjure images of washed-out beach scenes and hipstamatic-filtered romantic laments – perhaps best demonstrated on the breezy melancholy of ‘Raspberry Thighs’, an ode to summer love.

Dig deeper throughout Long Enough to Leave and you find influences ranging from the sunny indie pop of The Go-Betweens to Real Estate’s more modern take on that same sound. You begin to feel that The Mantles are a band mining a long way from their aforementioned peers; retro enough to play with White Fence (see the garage-y stomp of ‘Bad Design’) but all the while clutching records by The Feelies and REM close to their hearts.

Slumberland is a great example of a label putting out consistently high quality music, with every new release offering a soundtrack to the rest of the year. On the strength of Long Enough to Leave, The Mantles seem to have July, August and September’s musical accompaniment covered.