The Manvils

Hot on the heels of their recently released debut album, Buried Love, and their starring role in a particularly ubiquitous beer commercial (think "guitar maker”), Vancouver’s self-proclaimed "premier hard rock band” the Manvils return to strike while the iron is hot with a three-song EP of rock’n’roll mayhem. Strange Disaster opens with the title track, a blast of catchy, pop-savvy rock, à la fellow British Columbians Hot Hot Heat, complete with dance rock verses and big choruses. "Hang On Man” finds the quartet sliding into Trews-esque bar band riffery, with scorching guitar solos intact. They end with a largely faithful cover of "Helter Skelter,” though with a lengthy psych-space freak-out at the end and no apparent blisters on fingers. This is a band to see live, methinks. (Sandbag, www.sandbagrecords.com) Neil McDonald