Fences started in 2004, in Boston, the day Chris Mansfield thought, "I figured I might as well name this group of songs I'd been writing and have something to do with myself." He, like his music, is nothing if not brutally honest.
Mansfield was a student of jazz at the Berklee College of Music when he met his roommate, who played acoustic guitar and wrote terribly sad songs. Inspired by John's musical musings, Chris sold his upright bass for $5,000, used some of that money to buy an acoustic guitar, then spent the next year wrestling his personal demons. While the exploration of his darker side proved fruitful in terms of songwriting fodder, everything changed when he met his current love, a beguiling woman with whom he moved to New York City. In 2007, the pair moved to Seattle.
The Ultimate Puke EP is the band's first, and is a hauntingly beautiful thing, expertly and effortlessly written. Conjured and recorded in Mansfield's apartment, each song is plaintive and soulfully raw in the way the best spontaneous songs are - they're melodies with immediacy and urgency. You can hear just how close the mouth is to the mic on "The Knees" - Mansfield is near whisper as his beloved slept in the adjacent room.
Quiet and delicate though some parts of Fences' music may be, the music is a stark contrast to Chris's seemingly tough exterior. Instrumentally, the misleadingly titled Ultimate Puke is an understated affair, with Mansfield's minimalist acoustic guitar lines and brushed drums backing his crooned journal entries. Where Mansfield is his best is on the few tracks where the music works with the words, as on "Same Tattoos," where the introduction of the drum, mid-song, calls attention to Mansfield's line: "It's not like you were really gone gone gone gone, but you were and I never felt love."�
In those moments, when Mansfield drops the thin veil and truly lets his listener feel his pain, his true talent shines. --SEATTLE SOUND
The Ultimate Puke EP is at its best when Mansfield plays things a bit wrier on "Boys Around Here". They've got the planks to go higher. --QRO MAGAZINE
Fences debut, The Ultimate Puke EP, conjures up memories of acoustic/folk past: Elliott Smith; Mike Kinsella / Owen; David Bazan. But the Seattle (by way of Boston) trio adds their own flair. -- PUNKNEWS.ORG
Local singer-songwriter outfit Fences write stripped down, compelling songs about ordinary subjects - girls, estranged fathers, relationships. So what? Boys in America sit down with an acoustic guitar and sing about those very subjects every 2.7 minutes. But there's something that makes Fences' efforts sound more genuine than most. Singer Chris Mansfield's lyrics are delivered with a gentle guitar and coy mumble, forcing you to really listen to hear the stories he tells. It's almost like he's ashamed, like he's playing this song because he has to and he's not quite comfortable about it yet himself, but the only other option is death or insanity. --THE STRANGER
