"I made myself an open book; I made myself a sitting duck."
There is a deceptive complexity at the heart of Menomena's sound; buried beneath all the intricate layers, random loops and deconstructive tendencies are some really fine pop songs. This conventional side of Menomena, something they expended much effort in obscuring on I Am the Fun Blame Monster! and slightly less so on Friend and Foe, steps a little more boldly into the limelight on Mines. This is not to say that Mines doesn't contain its share of moments when form threatens to overwhelm content, where refraction crosses over into distraction, but overall, this is a wonderfully melodic and sumptuously recorded album; in fact, Mines is one of those albums that your ears feel they can wander about in, such is the level of sonic detail and sense of spaciousness. For example, on "Dirty Cartoons," an off-kilter tale of romantic disaffection, the arrangement slowly builds from isolated acoustic strums to tinkling piano arpeggios to the ominous undertow of the bass, which is pushed to distortion through some kind of fuzz effect. The song has an insistently repetitive structure that lends it both a haunting and world-weary feel. Another standout track is "Queen Black Acid," which establishes a gentle down-tempo groove that is occasionally punctuated by a gorgeous harmonized chorus. While not Menomena's most experimental effort, Mines is arguably their most fully-formed in terms of composition and is positively full of smart, evocative lyrics.
Mines
1. Queen Black Acid (4:46)
2. Taos (4:59)
3. Killemall (4:05)
4. Dirty Cartoons (4:52)
5. Tithe (4:53)
6. Bote (5:52)
7. Lunchmeat (3:29)
8. Oh Pretty Boy, You're Such a Big Boy (5:19)
9. Five Little Rooms (4:57)
10. Sleeping Beauty (5:17)
11. Intil (5:47)
Thanks voixautre for this. I hope that you'll post more menomena in the time. Thanks again.
ReplyDeletefrankroo, I'll post some more Menomena in the near future, perhaps their first album.
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