Manassas — Down the Road

I picked this up at Deep Groove in Phoenixville sometime in 2018 or ’19, after being completely hypnotized by the excellence of the first Manassas album for a year or two, but knowing that it was bound to be a disappointment, or at least that it couldn’t equal that incredible first album. I wasn’t disappointed, by which I mean I was, but exactly in the way that I expected to be. It came out in 1973, just a year after the debut album, at a time when the band was in complete disintegration. And it sounds it. Far from the cohesiveness of the Manassas album, this is just a drab mess. I bought it partly out of my completist gene, which I’m always fighting, and partly just in case there was a particular gem that needed to be heard. But that just wasn’t the case. No regrets, it didn’t cost much, but it’s not going to get much play, either. It’s not that the music is bad, but there’s nothing that grabs you.

But looking at the off-kilter cover picture, knee-deep in a field of whatever it is, all I can think is: Guys, let’s do a tick check when we get back to the house.