Starlight Mints "Drowaton" (Barsuk)
By
Friday. May 05, 1:30 AM
Oddly melodious and charmingly poetical.

The very ubiquity of indie-pop bands guarantees that a considerable amount of fluff now clouds the market, which has almost been overwhelmed by a sea of shoegazing sweater-vesters and corduroy fetishists, some of whom possess more talent and integrity than others. Lovers of music (destitute as we so commonly are) often become disoriented by the pressure to take a chance on one band when another is playing or selling CDs next door.

Starlight Mints are yet another indie-pop band asking you to take that chance. They have cool hair, collared shirts under tight sweaters, a girl who wears lovely dresses. They market themselves as “bubblegum psych,” and they promise to deliver. A skeptic must ask: “Do they deliver? Are they worth the chance?”

From the sounds that come barreling and flowing from their new record Drowaton, it would seem that Starlight Mints are in fact worth taking that chance. Drowaton is this reviewer’s first brush with the band, but they have two previous records under their belts, which suggests that they’ve been honing their chops for long enough to have established an aesthetic all their own. Whether their earlier works were bombs or stars (it seems that most critics found something to like about them), Drowaton confirms that Starlight Mints have something original, weird, inspired, and generally pleasurable they would like you to hear.

Perhaps there is something about Norman, OK – still home to indie superstars The Flaming Lips and the point of origination for Starlight Mints – that engenders its locals with an ear for the oddly melodious and the charmingly poetical. Like the latter-day Lips, the Mints take somewhat mystical pop songs and mangle them a bit, first with crunching guitars and bottom-feeder bass and synth lines, and then by adding Hitchcockian orchestration and a slightly off-kilter horn section.

The result, however, is similar to the work of their fellow Oklahomans only in its combination of experimental daring with disciplined song-craft. The Mints manage to take Drowaton into several very different directions while maintaining a remarkable consistency that becomes instantly recognizable after only a few listens. This is thanks in no small part to guitarist/vocalist Allan Vest’s voice – usually boyish and smooth but prone to the occasional crack of rawness – and the harmonizing of his bandmates Marian Love Nunez (keyboards), Javier Gonzales (bass), and Andy Nunez (drums). But all of the songs, from the dirty crush of the instrumental “Rhino Stomp,” the classic acoustic balladry of the macabre “The Killer,” to the crawling, creepy title track, bear the Starlight Mints imprint. They are short. They are sweet. They are delightfully demented.

If there is anything missing from Drowaton, it’s an edge. Starlight Mints are a pretty damn good band, but they are a safe band: there is no sense of decadence or danger here. They could be called post-punk, with a heavy emphasis on the “post-,” but those in search of searing or shredding or attitude should look elsewhere.

The Mints are just fine without an edge, though. Here’s a record that can stand on its own two feet, from a band that knows its job and does it well. What else is there to be said?
www.starlightmints.com
www.barsuk.com

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Jason Bronson

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