Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006
Well, this week brings us to the new Starlight Mints album, Drowaton. Now, I realize probably the only band that most people associate with Oklahoma is the Flaming Lips, but now you know two! Yes indeed, the Starlight Mints are an Oklahoma band and they have the requisite oddity to justify their origins, although they are not quite as odd as the Flaming Lips. Well, the music isn’t as odd. However, the lyrics certainly are.

Drowaton is their third album and their first on Barsuk. And indeed, there is certainly some Barsuk sound within the album. The Killer is a slow, plodding song that still manages to keep your ears interested. It certainly helps that the Mints have great orchestration throughout their entire album and The Killer is certainly a shining example of their ability to hear the music in many instruments, although it is rather tame by Starlight Mints standards. Sidewalk is a good example of the prolific instrumentation for which the Starlight Mints are best known. Probably the most fun track on the album is one smack in the middle, entitled Rhino Stomp. It is solely an instrumental, but it is pretty darn close to a musical representation of a rhino stomping through your living room. It’s pretty hilarious. Lastly, a song that interested me in particular upon examining the album was Pearls (Submarine #2). I wondered if it would live up to one of my favorite tracks, Submarine #3 off their debut effort The Dream That Stuff Was Made Of. And while Pearls (Submarine #2) was catchy and fun, it fell just short of Submarine #3. And really, that’s a good summation of the entire album. Drowaton is certainly an enjoyable album which to listen, but it lacks in that special quality . . . the kind of album that immediately gets put in your cd player and doesn’t come out (which by the by, is a lovely little cd I picked up by Tom Vek entitled We Have Sound . . . check that one out for sure).

So yeah, this is a pretty standard Starlight Mints offering. Songs like Torts and Seventeen Devils make sure the old fans are happy. To the Mints credit, they do make some effort to expand on their musical repertoire, but for the most part I feel like they just wanted to produce a good solid album to begin their Barsuk career. And as Barsuk signed the Starlight Mints, Rocky Votolato, and Mates of State at the same time, I the Starlight Mints can afford to coast a little on this record, but look for the next record to be a blockbuster. At least I hope so.


-patrick

Starlight Mints - Drowaton