The Post-Rockist

On their fourth album, Martyn Leaper and company return with a sound that, thankfully, can be identified as a distant cousin of earlier Minders’ records.  Call it maturing, re-inventing, or gracefully aging, but The Minders are definitely not the same band that their fans have come to love. It’s a Bright Guilty World shows The Minders to be a band that has outgrown their earlier warm, fuzzy, child-like exuberance and embraced a delightfully refined, albeit less exciting, pop sound. 

A majority of this album bounces along at roughly the same tempo, and Leaper rarely ventures into the minor key, but these musical consistencies avoid boring the listener.  Each song is endowed with a fairly distinct melodic hook, a fairly unique interplay of male-female vocals, and a fairly creative arrangement that work well with the Minders seemingly-official tempo.  And, all these elements lead to…a fair pop album.

It’s a Bright Guilty World has confidence and seeks no validation.  Leaper and his bandmates have been around long enough to know what works and what they want their record to sound like.  This is not the sound of a novice group of kids that are still working out the kinks of what hooks and what alienates the devoted indie-pop fan.  “Accidental Joy” and “Red Admiral’s (Gonna Pass Me)” are driven by well-timed guitar lines and melodies that are not too far removed from The Shins.  “Same Time, Same Place” includes a breezy male-female vocal line that skims along the top of a deceptively full backdrop of fuzzy noise.  The album’s strongest cut, “357,” was more than likely the indulgence of the band members as Elephant 6 alumni.  At 4:38, the album’s longest song, “357” starts with a repeating guitar riff that is joined and abandoned by a variety of other instruments that lulls listeners into a hypnotic yet unpredictable soundscape.  The vocals, appropriately, capture the same psychedelic demanding tone as John on “Tomorrow Never Knows.”  Midway through, the song itself drifts away from the foreground leaving only a dreamy outline of the melody before the guitars return in a (quite frankly) dazzling crescendo.

And, just when the album seems to have done the impossible and bridged the gap between the polished pop of now and the noisy excitement of earlier efforts by The Minders, “357” ends and the soundtrack to a hippie’s wet dream that is “Glittering Dream” begins.  The reverb-heavy guitar and the vocals are as saccharin as anything released in the hazy days of 1971.  The result is sickeningly sweet.  The clunky closer “Guns of August” bookends the album with a syncopated sound that is out-of-place and forced.  The biggest flaw with this album is the innocent mishandling of the song called “Jenny.”  Any indie-rock song named after a girl, especially a name as well-suited to lamentation as “Jenny,” deserves something more than The Minders were able to put forth.  Its melody is the least memorable on the album and the stripped-down delivery certainly doesn’t do justice to any Jenny I know.

Ten years into their career, The Minders have put together a better-than average album for the summer.  Its strong points are well-emphasized and its weak points don’t really detract from its overall sheen.  The gloss and polish of It’s a Bright Guilty World certainly doesn’t excite, but it pleases…and none will be more pleased than The Minders.  This is exactly the album they set out to make.

The Minders’ It’s a Bright Guilty World is on Future Farmer Recordings.

-Posted by E. Kula