The Maness Brothers “Maness Brothers” 2017. Romanus Records, custom marbled vinyl. We picked up this 6-song LP at the Brother O’Brother’s Neon Native record release show in Indianapolis this past weekend where The Maness Brothers were one of the openers, along with S-E-R-V-I-C-E. While the unbelievably gorgeous copies of Maness Brothers (also created by Romanus Records) were sold out long ago, our copy is also a beauty.

The Maness Brothers, from St. Louis, are David Maness on guitar and Jake Maness on drums. Both trade off on whiskey-soaked vocals (see “Davey’s Blues” and “End of Me”). Self-described “garage/doom/blues” rockers, their sound is gritty, intense, traditional hard-driving blues filtered through hill-country punk lenses. I’m always amazed when two musicians can project a packed-stage worth of volume and power, but these two succeeded, and then some. In an article about the band in Riverfront Times, I read Jake Maness played in a doom metal band and I now understand the ferocity’s foundation. The article also says, “While the band presents itself just loud enough to rattle the brain, the volume never feels overbearing – a testament to the brothers’ balance of skins and strings.”

After the show, we got a chance to chat with David Maness for awhile. (It was his 30th birthday that night.) Apparently they play Milwaukee frequently as they are good friends with Milwaukee-based Calliope (also on Romanus Records) so we’ll likely get a chance to see them again soon, without needing to drive five hours for the show. David also told us a great story about discovering Jon Spencer Blues Explosion around age 11 (JSBX’s Russell Simins plays in S-E-R-V-I-C-E). He was obsessed with blues music and while shopping at a record store saw their name had “blues” in it, so bought the record (“the one with a werewolf or something on it” – probably Plastic Fang). He said it was the weirdest thing he’d ever heard (at 11, I’m sure it was) but got into it after a few listens.