The Mantles

iTunes Review

The San Francisco Bay Area is undergoing a ‘60s musical revival, with scores of bands unearthing vintage keyboards and amps, perhaps wrapping songs in reverb, or Byrdsian guitar shimmer, or choosing between psychedelic haze and Motor City stomp. San Francisco quartet the Mantles join the time-travel fun, and here we get a touch of the Paisley Underground scene, punctuated occasionally — and effectively — with visceral shots of garage rock energy. This self-titled debut shows a band facing the challenge of melding more than one style into a cohesive whole. “What We Do Matters” stands out as a raucous, string-breaking burst of garage- punk fierceness, with singer Mike Oliveres' appealingly simple vocals swathed in reverb, while the Stooges clearly inspire the guitar tones of “Yesterday’s Gone.” But “Burden” (an earlier single) circles in a chemical-induced excursion to the far side, and “Don’t Lie” is a brooding, mid-tempo number, driven by a churning organ and ‘60s-pop guitar jangle. The Mantles smartly avoid overloading their songs with “pop” lightness, keeping a sharp edge to the tunes even when dousing them in lo-fi fuzz.