(Editor's note: I have not listened to the Menomena back catalog. Missed it completely. I will not be comparing Mines to the records that preceded it, but, instead, will be looking at it as a (more or less) independent piece of work. I've read a few reviews on other internet music "blogs," and get the impression that Menomena is kind of an indie hipster meme of sorts, a short hand way of expressing a certain aesthetic; the reviews I've read (to be frank) are a bit lazy, choosing to focus on the already substantial credibility of the band, rather than extol the unique virtues of this new work. (One case example, from P4K: "One of the things that makes Menomena such a consistently great band on record is that, regardless of how they're arranging their sounds, they know how to balance them in a mix so that the listener can feel the spatial relationships between them." I'll admit to a few non-sequiturs in my own writing, but what the fuck is that supposed to give the reader?) None of that here. I'll discuss the album and its merits (and there are many) as entities separate of any expectation or pre-existing notions. In a way, my ignorance to the early works of Menomena is to your benefit. I'm listening to this thing with a clear set of ears.)
Now that the disclaimer bit is out of the way, let's dispose of one more piece of business. Mines is good. Really good. To contextualize, consider, for a moment, the way the I interact with records. As our own Justin (currently on hiatus in the Paris of the South. Or maybe the Brooklyn of the East. Can't recall exactly.) has pointed out, I base a lot of my critical perspective on my impression of a piece of work's longevity. I latch onto records that I think I'll be listening to ten years from now. I am only passingly interested in the ephemeral; I want to hitch my heart's wagon to records that I'll listen to for a long time. This year, I've only purchased three physical copies of new releases (Local Natives, Suckers, and the record up for discussion today). Those are the records that, to this point, I see myself wanting to hear when I'm 40. Do I love, say, Sleigh Bells? Of course. But I think we can all acknowledge that that's a bit flash-in-the-pannish. No reason to do anything other than an electronic copy there. But a record like Mines is one that I want to know will exist in my life even if my hard drive explodes; I need the comfort of knowing that I'll still be able to listen to it if my ipod falls down a well or society collapses and we get our music solely from hand-crank gramophones.
In our internal Dick work sessions, I encouraged my colleagues to listen to two tracks on Mines. (We try to save each other some hassle on records we're trying to foist on others by pointing out the key cuts. Kevin, for instance has sworn for a year the I'll love A.A. Bondy if I just listen to "A Slow Parade." I'm holding out to torture him.) I told the other dicks to listen to "BOTE" and "Oh Pretty Boy, You're Such a Big Boy." I'd urge you, dear reader, to do the same. Wrap your brain around those two songs and you're halfway to loving Mines. (Sidebar: I have no clue what's going on with the all caps thing in several song titles. a.) BOTE, as far as I can tell, isn't a word. Neither are the other all caps song titles, "TAOS" and "INTIL." They also don't appear to be readily applicable acronyms. b.) All caps? For what? Emphasis? Visual counterpoint? No clue. If you are reading this and are Menomena, please clarify in the comments.) "BOTE" starts with a frenetic drum beat, a pleading, snappily figurative lyric ("Oh sea legs please don't fail me now/I pray lord please help me right/This ship today/Cause I can't take much more/Of this strain on my battered hull.") and slowly integrates a wicked little saxophone blurb, spiraling guitar work (notably around the three minute mark) and some soaring, angelic harmonies. There's a ton to like in the track's six minutes. As a whole, it sums up what a lot of Mines is about: playful sonics (with the slow integration and methodical iteration of sounds, almost in a DJ Shadow "Building Steam WIth a Grain of Salt Way," but not at all electronic) buttressing lyrics that point to the bleakness of human affairs. It's a doozy. "Oh Pretty Boy, You're Such a Big Boy" is damn near a dirge about the fleeting nature of time, but it's saved from overt murkiness by a wildly unexpected piano riff and some killer synthesizer work. If "BOTE" captures the up-tempo half of the record, "Oh Pretty Boy, You're Such a Big Boy" snags the quieter, more introspective chunk of Mines. The hushed drums, squelched guitar wails and sneaky bass line underpin a near-funk song wrapped in gloom. Good times.
We could do the song by song dissection of the rest of Mines, but it's probably as functional to just tell you that there isn't a clunker on the album. A few words on some standouts are probably in order, however. "Tithe" opens with a minute of what sounds to be a bottle solo (a la "Accidentally Kelly Street" crossed with Billy Martin; it's kind of like the sound a ghost might make at a bachelor party) then segues into a swaying, piano driven near-hymn, punctuated by frenetic drums and power chords. (Also, "Tithe" bears a strong resemblance to Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon," at least to my ear. That's the first and last time you'll hear an indie band of some renown sincerely and non-snarkily linked to the Piano Man, I'd guess.) "Sleeping Beauty" is a hot mess of distortion and dance beats. "INTIL" (another sonic doppelganger, this time for Radiohead's "Videotape") closes the record on an elegiac note and is particularly stirring. I don't have anything clever to say about "Lunchmeat" and "Dirty Cartoons;" they're good.
Two thoughts to close: First, I kind of like the idea of geographically polar bands. Local Natives, for instance, as the west coast Grizzly Bear is the kind of thing I can hang my hat on. Menomena may well be the Oregonian Akron/Family. The extremes aren't as extreme here and there's a sort of northwestern pall over much of the album, but I'd bet that if you raided both bands' closets, you'd find the same records. Secondly, Megafaun's Brad Cook told us in March that he'd heard a rough cut of Mines and was jaw-on-the-floor-excited about it. (I recognize how evil and pretentious name-dropping is, but it seemed warranted this one time.) If Brad's stoked, you should be too. We've got two tracks to get you primed, both of which are top drawer. (And, we'll be discussing The Suburbs at some point this week; I'll wager that even that gem doesn't have a more cutting lyric about North American ennui than the one in the middle of "Five Little Rooms." You'll know it when you hear it.)
Lastly, there's this, just for tickles.
Menomena update: I kind of fibbed when I said in the review that I had already purchased the vinyl; I got it today, well after I had written the review. There are four sides of vinyl, although the record itself only takes up three sides. The fourth side? An unlisted, super-duper extended fifteen minute jam that might be the best cut on the album. So…pretty please, with sugar on top, but the fucking record.
INTIL – i never thought i’d lie