Menomena : Mines

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/menomenamines.jpg" alt=" " /><i>Mines </i>is very far from a bad album, and yet the songs can't avoid an overall lack of diversity as each one blends into the...
7.4 Barsuk
2010 

Menomena : Mines The most important aspect to understand about Menomena is their unique recording style.  The trio, which has now very recently been upped to four members with the inclusion of 31Knots’ (QRO album review) and Tu Fawning’s (QRO photos, opening for Menomena) Joe Haege, has never had a lead singer, and instrument duties are constantly swapped for each song.  The songwriting process remains democratic in the studio through the use of a program developed by the group that records one individual instrument at a time and loops it for each member to build equally off of.  Banking on the distinctiveness of this process, the band set forth this year on releasing their third album Mines.

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Thankfully, this has all paid off with a well-rounded sound that, to put it simply, works.  Everyone in the group can effectively sing and play multiple instruments with competent precision, which is something so rare in bands these days that Menomena could theoretically record any kind of music they wanted and make it worthy of praise.  There is nothing inherently new on this release that hasn’t been done before by someone else, but the catchiness of the melodies, beauty of the vocal harmonies, and the very grab-whatever-instrument-happens-to-be-sitting-nearby vibe more than make up for it.  The music world doesn’t always need another groundbreaking band.

Mines is very far from a bad album, and yet the songs can’t avoid an overall lack of diversity as each one blends into the next.  Regardless, there is still enough variety in the brilliant little aspects, be it the subtle bass riff in “BOTE”, the staccato guitar part in “Tithe”, or the ever-present piano tagalongs in everything else.  Even the lyrics stick out from time to time as a hard-hitting statement on modern culture, especially in “Five Little Rooms” as one of them croons, “Hung on a pole / Right next to a McDonalds / In a suburb and shopping mall / At half mast again / Between shooting stars / All this could be yours / Someday,” before handing the microphone over to someone else for the next song.

You can’t help but nod along to the record’s space-rock-meets-tribal-rhythms sound, and pre-established fans are guaranteed to fall in love from start to finish.  Menomena has found a niche for themselves that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, and they’ve managed to pull it off exceptionally well once again.

MP3 Stream: “Killemail”

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