Customer Reviews

Manna

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Why did the other reviewer write 'I have to admit...' for his opinion of loving Bread- one should be proud to like this sort of music!
As for the album, it is excellent. Not one weak song on here. It opens with two songs, that give a false impression, this might be a heavier album. 'Let your love go' is one of their best rockers, showing Gates could do other styles, not just ballads. 'Take comfort' goes from really bluesy bits to ballady bits in the middle and it really works, showing Griffin and Royer were as talented as the genius Gates.
'If' is the most beautiful heart wrenching ballad and the end of the song, if you close your eyes, will make you feel you are flying. Incredible stuff. The best song on here just beats that though, 'Come again'. what an incredible classical arrangement and what a beautiful melody. Definitely shows what depth goes into their songs. Awesome.
Another of my favourites is one that Griffin has not rated in retrospect, 'Live in your love', but to me, this is another incredible ballad, with a soaring melody.
All the other songs are great also. Highly recommended from these geniuses I am proud to love.

I have to admit I love Bread. This album is a great addition for those who wish to add on to anthology or retrospective. The hit "if" is here, but there are also songs you won't find anywhere else such as "what a change", and the beautiful piano and violin in "come again". There are some duds here, but what other bands can say they had 10 top 20 hits and 7 top 40 albums in less than three years?

Okay, maybe I'm a little biased here as far as judging which Bread album was the best of their half-dozen stellar studio efforts, but there are many factors convincing me that "Manna" should have featured the subtitle "From Heaven."

The legendary love ballad "If" alone is almost enough to justify the album's "heavenly" appeal, but songs such as (among others) the harpsichord-driven rocker "Let Your Love Go" and the church-like organ solos on the ethereal "What A Change", as well as the album's centerpiece, "Come Again" (which, for all its melodrama, succeeds brilliantly in its shifts of tempo, mood, and overall dynamics that even most pop music craftsmen ignore) ultimately give this album a warm "Baroque" feel that makes the album a wonderful first choice if you were forced to choose among Bread's studio efforts instead of any of their numerous and sometimes notoriously repetitive best-of collections (with the notable exception of 1996's 2-CD "Retrospective" of course).

Sure, seasoned Wall-Of-Sound Veteran Larry Knechtel, who joined the band following the album's 1971 release, contributed a wealth of experience and his own subtle signature touches to succeeding (and also massively successful) Bread recordings, but the tensions that had just begun to brew within the previous lineup were likely a factor in producing an ultimately masterful 12-song body of work that no Bread album before or since could touch with a ten-foot, uh, loaf.

Enough already - just enjoy the album if you already own it ... if not, then get it post haste!!!

Simply they're BEST record... less commercial then all the rest.
The tri fold album design will be a classic in Rock n Roll cover art.
Scoop it up while you can. There are good songs here that do not show up
on the best of CD releases, the cover concept by photographer Robert L Heimall is a work of art. The fidelity of the recording, as with most Elektra releases of that time is outstanding.
These guys knew how to record and produce. In Tribute... Take Comfort!

A very nice album, indeed. This is the tight, well written 'pop' you were avoiding in the early seventies (see also 'Harry Nillson') that may appeal to the softer you that's appeared of late. Regardless, the album has lots of drive and harmonizing like you haven't heard in a long time. Where do great songwriters like these disappear to anyway?

This was my favourite of the original studio albums by 70's pop rock supergroup Bread. Gates was in fine melodic form here, with his sugary sweet high tenor soaring on songs like If and What a Change. Griffin also contributed some good songs, including the melodic country-rocker Too Much Love and the ethereal I Say Again. This is a good album to check out for those who want to dig deeper than the ubiquitous 'best of' collections, as there are a lot of very diverse and interesting styles on here, yet the album still flows together nicely. They were actually a much more diverse band than is generally known, always including some hard rockers to balance out the ballads. The 1995 Rhino remaster is the edition to get, the sound quality is really clear and crisp on it. As time rolls on, some of these early Bread albums are starting to become obscure, so interested parties should probably snatch up a cd copy of this forgotten classic while they still can-bands just don't make pop/rock music this good anymore!

This album had the best quality and strongest mix of songs of all of the Bread albums. Gates and Griffin meshed so much better and clearer on this production. If is such a solid song, but other choices had a more deeper quality to them - Too Much Love, Come Again, Live In Your Love.

The band, Bread, is so great. They play what is termed soft rock and it is so comforting to listen to. I could listen to them all day.

I'm not a Bread Head but I've listened to this album hundreds of times. The only other Bead album I ever owned was their first which I could never get into. In my opinion this is not an album to listen to. However, it is the best album to study with. I could put this album on and it was the best background music ever. I would put this on my turntable with auto start on and let it play at least 2 or 3 times while I studied. Then I could turn it over and do the same on the other side. It sounds real good but if you tried to really listen to it I think you would get bored. I mean if you want to actually listen to Bread I would definitely go for "Baby I'm a Want You" but you could never study to that because it would always grab your attention away. I would play this all the time when I studied and I would never be pulled away to listen to it. The amazing thing is that it helped me think when I stopped to think. I used to try all kinds of other albums back then and none of them were decent to study with. Either they would pull my attention away with the music or would bother me because they were just not good. I would have to say that this is the best album I know of to have on if you want music on but you don't really want to listen to it or be bothered by it. Let's admit it this is a really great album with really good music which doesn't try in any way to grab you. Most pop music is trying so hard to either force your ear, blow you away, overstate something or worse that you either listen to it if you're in the mood or shut it off. This is just really sweet, simple rock with nice harmony without a bad song. Probably the most unpretentious pop music I have ever heard. To me it is the best I have heard of the entire genre - America, James Taylor, Loggins & Messina, early Eagles, Cat Stevens... I would have never known that this was a good album if I didn't get it in the bargain bin one day. How can you lose for $.99? You cannot go wrong if you get a copy of this album. Just don't expect to be able to put it on and blow you away or evn be singing the songs a week later. Just put it on and do something else and it will grow on you in a very subtle way. It always got me after I turned it off or when it would get to the end I noticed how nice it was.

Not sure about why you should buy this album?

Here's what I think of the songs (bear in mind i have a sweet tooth for vocal melody and cool instrumentation):

1. Let your love go: Catchy as hell and a good rock tune
2. Take Comfort: Good strong guitar riff and it goes into some jefferson airplane space out parts tempered with strings... love those rock harmonies
3. Too Much Love: another one of their strong and sweet melodies
4. If: everyone who knows Bread knows this awesome timeless song
5. Be kind to me: mellow song, the good thing about the song is its chill out instrumentation... the melody is not powerful just easy... not something you'd remember or take an effort to.
6. He's a good lad: sweet melody, you can hear a little of the beatles here.
7. She was my lady: you'd definitely hear john lennon in this... but this doesnt have a strong melody... it just has a nice psychedelic feel to it.
8. Live in your love: kinda like elton john in a way.. the way the song starts. this song shifts all over the place... somewhat unhinged... not something i'd bother to listen to again or care to remember.
9. What a Change: not catchy nor worth remembering
10. I say again: Awesome starting instrumentation, quite trippy but no strength in the melody... i'd listen to the instrumentation again but i wont ever remember the vocals.
11. Come Again: ok this song is boring... the only thing remotely interesting is the instrumental part towards the end of it.
12. Truckin: dont be fooled by the country start... it has a cool 70s bridge part.

Don't buy this if you're not into collecting Bread. Only 5 catchy songs out of 12, you can get those 5 songs from other Bread compilation albums.