Attack Of The Grey Lantern

Product Information

Created in May 2008 to provide a home for the growing post-progressive genre and an evolving, flexible and adventurous style of music without boundaries. This song leaves you with the sentiment of not taking the whole thing too seriously, it’s just a bit of a joke. Having spent my formative years going to [nightclubs] Cream in Liverpool and the Hacienda in Manchester, this really ignited my love for dance music, and ‘Egg Shaped Fred’ was one of our early tracks where we’d jam our distorted guitars over drum loops from an AKAI S900 sampler. The Long Island metal band's third album etches arena-sized hooks into their jagged compositions, deftly balancing experimental and poppy inclinations. I was planning ahead and already had the idea of a skit on a concept record already written down, this song does what it says on the tin and describes a particularly debauched night in the life of the characters on the record.

Due to fan-driven popular demand, Paul then played an ambitious second solo tour in early 2018, performing Spooky Action as well as Attack of the Grey Lantern. Mansun are regarded as one of the most innovative British bands of the late 1990s and released three classic albums - Attack Of The Grey Lantern (1997), Six (1998), Little Kix (2000) - a retrospective compilation Kleptomania and a popular series of EPs during its existence. Here at NME, we deemed it the 44th best album of 1997 in our end of year list (and there was stiff competition that year, believe us). I remember being slightly off my tits in Ibiza when Paul Oakenfold’s remix came on in Pacha and it blew me away. Listening back to the lyrics I’m reeling off characters from the fictitious small northern town where the album is set, ‘Skinima Nosebreak’ ‘Fatima Toothpaste’ ‘Penelope Cheapskate’ ‘Claudia Farmgate’, not your average lyric for the era really and still makes me chuckle to this day that something so absurd hit No.

I wouldn't have a cape, but there are definitely characters on the record – Albert Taxloss, Chad, Dark Mavis. At the start of the recording sessions for the album I’d decided there would be no love songs on this album, or any Mansun album. It was complex to work out how to piece all this together, like a jigsaw, but great fun, the mastering engineer didn’t think so though.

This special 21st anniversary vinyl edition comes as two LPs in gatefold packaging featuring the iconic 'roses' cover art. I always thought the chords and melody movement were really complex on this song and I can only imagine they’ll make a West End musical out of it in the end, which would be a suitable ending to the life of this record I think. Each Mansun album started and ended with the same style of track, something I thought I’d be able to continue through all our records, so they became like a journey from start to finish. Attack of the Grey Lantern is the debut album by English alternative rock band Mansun released on 17 February 1997 via Parlophone.Inside it says remastered in 2018 by Jon Astley, all I can see written(stamped I meant) on the dead wax is side1:- 237358E1/ A, and side 2:- 237358E2/B with no other tell tale marks or logos anywhere, ok my eyesight is bad but I did this with my 3 x readers on lol ! A sarcastic swipe at the music industry, Taxloss was originally 11 minutes long and encompassed my modus operandi of the time of jumping between genres and parody.