Send "Serena" Ringtones to your Cell 
| Allmusic |
 Serena Maneesh's 2005 debut album was an impressive work of neo-shoegaze, neo-noise rock that seemed to come out of nowhere -- unless you lived in Norway or were hip enough to hear either of the two EPs that preceded the record, that is. Released in 2002, Fixxations caught a lighter, less epic-sounding band able to rip off a super pretty pop song like "Drive Me Home the Lonely Nights," choogle through the tough rocker "Blues Like Beehive," or drift through the spacy "Ballad of Jezebel" like a disciple of Sonic Boom. Only on "Oxygen, Please!" did they hint at the noise explosion that would soon follow. Mostly the group sounded like a sprightly, good-natured version of Medicine, which is not a bad goal at all. Zurück, though it came out after Fixxations, contained material recorded between 1999 and 2003. It also showcased a less focused, more experimental side of the band; from the ambient soundscape of "Introspection" and the dreamlike haze of "Leipziger Love" (both recorded in 2001) to the noisy recorded-in-one-raw-take "Degenerate" and the droning but lovely "Never," the band seemed less interested in crafting songs than in creating sound and mood. Put the two EPs together and you have a pretty good template for the album that followed....full text |
| Popmatters |
| Were you impressed by Serena-Maneesh in 2006? Do you remember their veiled and thrilling sound? They were serious and intellectual about their music in a way that wasn’t ideally suited to the quick-scavenging blog culture, so it’s no surprise that the group had been making powerful music for a number of years before Serena Maneesh broke them into America’s listening consciousness. It’s a pleasure, now, to have the back catalogue officially available through Smalltown Supersound, a little label quickly building a reputation for solid, consistently interesting output. S-M Backwards contains remastered and remixed material from the group’s first two EPs, Zuruch and Fixxations, released originally between 1999 and 2003. There are sixteen tracks, but a number of tracks are remixed or re-worked, so listening to the material straight through reinforces the material in unexpected ways. S-M Backwards is roughly chronologically arranged, with the newer EP first and, within each EP, the re-worked material front-loaded. This is refreshing for long-time fans who are already familiar with the material. For new listeners, it’s rewarding to compare the ways in which the band has chosen to re-work its originals. Amazon In writing about this collection, Emil Nikolaisen describes it as “pieces, fragments, failure and treasure hand in hand”. Which is actually a nice way to think not only about the band’s success/failure, but about their approach to revelation-through-suddenly-revealed-beauty. There’s plenty of that—and plenty of the fragmentary detritus that throws is necessary for it to seem so high yield—throughout S-M Backwards. The atonal wail of strings/organ half-way through “Sehnsucht/Drag Me Upstairs”, the exploration of the edges of twang-guitar on the original “Drive Me Home the Lonely Nights”, the far-off skeleton rattle of “Degenerate”. Listen, and you’ll easily find your own moments like these....full text |
| Pitchforkmedia |
| Unless you regularly scour obscure Norwegian record labels, chances are Serena-Maneesh's 2005 self-titled debut-- a hulking spin on Loveless-- came out of nowhere. The group returned to Scandinavia so quickly the internets didn't even have time to forge a formidable backlash, but here to assure us they weren't a figment of our imaginations, S-M Backwards compiles S-M material from 1999 to 2003, offering up candid snapshots of a band that's otherwise been full of mystique. Backwards' two discs draw from two main sources, 2002's Fixxations EP and 2005's Zurück EP, making this less an odds'n'sods collection and more a re-release, complete with lots of remixes and alternate cuts. As evidenced by S-M's cataclysmic debut, frontman and songwriter Emil Nikolaisen draws from a vast palette, and the meandering quality of this early material attests to how carefully crafted their perfectly stormy debut was. Fixxations, the band's debut EP and Disc One here, harnesses this energy into the most accessible block of tunes S-M's released to date. On "Drive Me Home The Lonely Nights", Nikolaisen finds the perfect marriage between pet influences like the Velvets, MBV, and contemporaries like close friend Sufjan Stevens. Gritty psych-rockers "Blues Like Beehive" and "Hear/Bleed Phil Harmonic" are less elegant, their droning riffs less subtle and the vocals a tad too cool for their own good in an Anton Newcombe way....full text |
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