Man Made - TV Broke My Brain

Of course any work of art has to stand on its own two feet, and any band is more than its frontman. Be that as it may, it’s very hard to discuss Man Made’s debut album TV Broke My Brain without mentioning guitarist and singer Nile Marr, son of indie hero Johnny.  Like his father, Marr is clearly a master of the rollicking guitar riff, and also like his father, he’s a fan of an album with something to say about the world.

In this case, TV Broke My Brain is ostensibly a meditation on “the state of technology and it's role in life”, an experience which, the band’s press release explains, asks the listener to “unplug yourself from the matrix of gadgets in your life” and have real, face-to-face interactions. Admittedly, Man Made describe themselves as “a live experience”; maybe their thoughts on stepping away from the gadgets are less embarrassing in person than they felt coming out of my iPod. 

It’s songs like the title track and especially Plastic Key to Living that tackle the scourge of technology. Unfortunately, they come across as smug and slightly preachy, instead of particularly insightful about how we live now. Marr’s anguished delivery of lines like “we turn on, we log off, this is not enough” delivers plenty of angst and world-weariness, but fails to say anything new or interesting. 

Beyond these sermons, though, is a very good album. Opening track Carsick Cars is a summer anthem just waiting to be played out of car windows, underpinned by a headbanging guitar riff, whilst Bring Some sounds like the Maccabees and Wombats getting together to plan a night out. Standout track Raining in My Head is a beautiful, sad song, and one of the rare occasions when Rogers sounds like he’s singing about something true. And even those ‘state of technology’ tracks are never less than listenable, however woolly their thinking.