The Mint Chicks - Screens

MINE

So I had really no idea about this band before listening to this album, other than they're from New Zealand and on the Flying Nun label (which most of the better NZ acts seem to be).  I'll have to admit I thought they were a bit noisier than they are - a pleasant surprise when I realised they're on the pop side of indie pop (mostly).

I'll also have to admit that I haven't really given this album the detailed listen I think it deserves, as I was cooking madly at the time.  But it was good cooking music apart from the last track Life Will Get Better Someday which didn't get better the longer I listened to it, just worse.  It was one of those tunes that crossed over from indie pop to indie yuk. A fine line to travel, and many better bands ahve fallen over it before the Mint Chicks, so I guess I'll forgive them one dud song.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

Signed to my favourite New Zealand label, Flying Nun, The Mint Chicks are some seriously crazy dudes (in fact, their second full length album acknowledged this with the title Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! )  Led by brothers Koby and Rubin Neilson, they take pop music down a twisted, idiosyncratic path and leave it to fend for itself.  Thankfully, under the Chicks tutelage, it thrives.

Screens, the third album from this now Portland, Oregon-based four-piece, sees them continue on this odyssey of giving the world their skewed pop fancies, devoid of any restrictions or limitations.  The melodies dart about like spastic birds in a psychedelic sky, led by Koby Neilson's effected vocal delivery.  And musically, theirs is a mixed-up world of vocoders, analog synths and garage punk rock.  I like it a lot.

But then, with titles like Don't Sell Your Brain Out, Baby, Life Will Get Better Someday and I Can't Stop Being Foolish, this is ultimately an album of well-disguised pop enthusiasm, something that always appeals to me.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

For more information go to http://www.themintchicks.com/

In our collection we also have Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No, Octagon Octagon Octagon (EP) and Anti-Tiger (EP)