These popular Portland psych-poppers abandon lo-fi on this album—the guitar and bass have that small-venue clipped buzz, singer Martyn Joseph sounds like he’s throttling the mic stand, and Rebecca Cole’s keyboard gets layered over everything—yielding a sound reminiscent of XTC before they went pastoral. Fans of that group—and of The Minders’ colleagues in the psych-pop Elephant 6 collective—will enjoy the sharp high-energy lyrics and strong hooks, while those still waiting for another E6 album to equal the vision and majesty of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea will have to keep waiting. Probably for a long time.
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