What’s in a name? Not much. Not where The Dirty Clergy are concerned, anyway. With a handle like that — not to mention a home base in Alabama — most folks would understandably expect this trio to deliver swampy southern blues-rock evangelism. And they’d be dead wrong. Instead, the Clergy worship at the altar of shoegaze, serving up a series of slowburning meditations and sweeping, swooping flights of guitar-rock fancy. Some garage-tinged indie-rock helps break up the monotony, while frontman Brian Manasco’s Billy Corganesque yowl puts a new spin on things. But ultimately, The Dirty Clergy don’t make waves so much as ride them for all they’re worth.
THE PRESS RELEASE: “With 2020 marking a decade into their musical careers The Dirty Clergy vacillate between shoegaze-esque ruminations on love and struggle and more straightforward garage numbers that surge into ecstatic cacophony all accented by eerily laconic vocals, The Alabama-based trio (featuring vocalist/guitarist Brian Manasco, bassist Ky Carter and drummer Cody Moorehead) are looking to expand their already respectable discography with their upcoming full-length, the aptly titled In Waves. The 12-song collection represents the band’s second collaboration with producer Les Nuby (Verbena, Holiday Gunfire and co-owner of Ol’ Elegante Studio in Birmingham), who had engineered the Clergy’s previous album, 2016’s Rattlesnake. After having a couple of other singers in the tenure of the band, founder Manasco uses this latest record to give his own voice to the lyrics and melodies that he has crafted. “Everything was different because we had a different lineup,” Manasco recalls. “I wrote all of the new songs and when we started rehearsals, the former singer had wanted to rewrite the lyrics. But we had already recorded all of the music. I was then talking to Anton Newcombe from The Brian Jonestown Massacre and he said ‘tell that dude to hit the road.’ And Les was aware of all this stuff. I had to go back and redo all of the songs in terms of tempo and key to accommodate a new singer. I was not planning on singing the songs myself, but ultimately I didn’t have a choice. That’s what the band wanted from the start. They wanted me to sing from the beginning. Everything sputtered a bit at first, but I knew the sound I was trying to achieve once started singing because it was something I always wanted to do.”
