Rating:   36 Ratings     12345  

Starlight Mints Drowaton Barsuk

      I could easily classify myself as someone completely and utterly enamored by twisted genres of art, being a huge fan of Camille Rose Garcia and Mark Ryden whose creations include the little girl with the overly-round bug eyes picking skull-topped flowers out of a blood red garden, the half octopus/half woman nihilist rationing out poisons, the frightened children fiendishly imprisoned at Creepcake's bakery, and even a painting depicting an albino girl squirting milk from her nipples into a tiny elephant's mouth as Jesus watches from a corner, I find nothing but overly charming and magical in their display. So why am I telling you this? Well, that's because if the Starlight Mints were to be hung in a museum, I think they would be somewhere in the wacky vicinity of these guys. It’s almost like I'm expecting the Mints to bust out in verse "Who can take a sunrise and sprinkle it with dew?" since they're pretty close to what the Candyman can do.

      The Oklahoma based Mints are composed of four eccentric artists who came together in the early 90’s to create a unique sound that is heavily instrumental, infectious in melody, high on cheeky vocals, lyrically whimsical, and nothing short of utterly catchy. Allan Vest (vocals/guitar), Marian Love Nunez (keyboards), Javier Gonzales (bass), and Andy Nunez (drums) also throw in a menagerie of other sound effects to create a surreal, dreamlike quality to their complex and continually perplexing sound. Church bells, horns, violin, tambourine, triangle, synths, and sound effects accompany their already fantastic juxtaposition for a vivid Utopian sound experience.

      The wonderfully weird band previously released two albums, The Dream that Stuff Was Made of in 2000, and Built on Squares in 2003 which paved the way for the quirky and delightfully orchestral laden Drowaton to be released on April 25, 2006. Although it’s been said "Drowaton" is just a made up word that only the band knows the story behind, I find myself wondering is it just “Not A Word” backwards? Who knows and honestly who gives a palindrome? Drowaton is crammed full of divine choruses, luscious string arrangements, devilishly crafty lyrics, and such airy light sound that you will almost inevitably find yourself phantasmagorically floating while listening.

      The high-energy opening track “Pumpkin” is a delicious place to start. It’s deliriously packed full of perplexing melody, frolicking guitars, quirky bass, and ever-so-catchy lyrics “tra la la la” that will leave you orgasmically dazed and possibly reminiscent of carnivals, pinwheels, and even cotton candy with its sweetly divine sound. “Torts” starts out with a contagious whistling chorus and drunkenly-fun lyrics that is splendidly akin to the indie-rock, cult-followed band Pavement of the 90’s. “What’s Inside of Me?” is a fierce competitor for my personal favorite track on the album, simply due to its extremely hypnotic piano crescendo that leaves me cheerfully overflowing with unabashed glee and amusement.

      “Seventeen Devils” is a fascinating glam-rock ballad containing an alluring chorus that is Bowie-esque, sweeping strings, and understated tambourines that tap, tap, tap their way right into your heart. “Rhino Stomp” is easily the most idiosyncratic song on the album and possibly a bit unsettling and eerie to some. Nothing more than a thumping instrumental move of horns, bass, and strings, yet somehow the combination of quirky chords played form a queer sound that reminds me of the trippy "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence from Dumbo. An unlikely scary movie candidate, yet nonetheless many folks couldn’t seem to shake the trip out fear from the infamous sequence, and somehow the Mints manage to capture that butterfly-feeling tonality in “Rhino Stomp”.

      “The Killer” is a mild acoustic number in which Vest sings of a murderer walking into a killer’s home and making himself at home, which oddly conveys itself to the listener as a pleasant and beautifully strummed folk ballad. If Sufjan Stevens can sing of “John Wayne Gacy” and it’s nothing short of divine, why can’t the Mints eloquently sing of sociopaths too? The closing track “Sidewalk” is exactly that, a great place for them to part their ways. It’s an ending to Drowaton that is impressively grand, with climatically blown trumpets and spellbinding lyrics that coo “till it’s over” that takes the ending floating off like a big red balloon into a vast blue sky.

      While the Starlight Mints may have a puzzlingly twisted and out-of-the-ordinary sound, thankfully that’s just one of the jillion reasons that make them such a musically marvelous and endlessly endearing group of artists. They’re music is essentially an ecstatic orgy of merriment, festivity and jubilation rolled into one talented ball. They’ve frequently been compared to the Flaming Lips, and maybe that’s because they’re from Oklahoma, or maybe because Wayne Coyne puts on a magical, circus-like performance in every concert, but regardless, I think the Oklahoma music scene deserves a lot more credit than it’s currently getting. Drowaton is a solid record that leaves the listener thinking “Who can take tomorrow, and dip it in a dream?” well, that’s simple, The Starlight Mints can.

-Christine Beals 02/24/06