Bristol alt-rock trio Mind Museum list amongst their major influences the likes of Biffy Clyro, Coheed and Cambria and The Cure. So what are we expecting from their debut EP? Tinkered time signatures and post-hardcore/rock splicing perhaps? Some expansive, experimental piece that tells a story involving space and big afros? Or maybe just something intensely emotional, dark and brooding.
Sorry folks, but the reality is you’re getting nothing of the sort. Instead, what’s on offer is little more than six helpings of ‘Hours’-era Funeral for a Friend, but dumbed down into something wholly less enjoyable, with a couple of acoustic and erm… drum n’ bass versions that we’ll get to later.
Things begin worryingly for ‘One Blood’ when it becomes apparent that opener ‘The Get Go’ isn’t offering anything to whet the appetite for the rest of the recording. Justin Percival’s vocals are tame and characterless, and the song’s structural development is virtually none existent. Instead, the title is simply repeated a lot along with anything that vaguely rhymes across a very ordinary verse/chorus/verse formula.
Mind Museum suffer deeply from the same blight that seems to affect a great deal of what is becoming large enough to be described as a new wave of alt-rock bands. They strive to come up with something as moving, elegiac and thought provoking from a lyrical point of view, as the bands that inspired them, but without necessarily having the required dactylic prowess.
Instead what is produced is really corny, and this is so unnecessary. We aren’t all great poets, but there’s no shame in sticking with what feels comfortable and just forming the melody comfortably around the instrumental elements, rather than constantly banging square pegs into round holes.
Third track ‘Wake Up’ does, in fairness, sound a lot less like it’s trying too hard, but even with this vice removed, further weaknesses are exposed. There’s just nothing interesting happening: no killer moments, no eyebrow-raising hooks or anything to get the pulse racing. Just derivative lines like “You lost your soul, a long long time ago, now fame and fortune’s got its hold on you.”
This template repeats itself over and over. ‘Lie To Me’, ‘Answers’ and ‘All the Kings Men’ have nothing to contribute as pieces of music, but if anything is likely to stick in your head it will be the hackneyed and clumsy vocal outpourings. Efforts like “When all is said and done, we were the lucky ones, always looking for the answers but the answers never came”, sound like they’re trying to fit as many clichés into one line as possible.
The two acoustic versions they’ve strapped onto the EP for ‘Wake Up’ and ‘Lie To Me’ are bad ideas because they expose the ugly innards of the tracks. At least as part of a fully instrumental production the overall sound is buffered by the layers. But stripped down into this state the fragile core is naked and it really does not sound good.
Further additions are two drum n’ bass remixes which I cannot understand. OK, so it’s great that their mate Icon Roller knows how to sample their music into his style, props to him for that, but are these really Mind Museum tracks?
It’s not so much that this band is really terrible, and to be honest I’m sure a lot of people will listen to them and say “hey, they’re not all that bad.” They aren’t! But then again there are so many better up and coming UK bands of this style out there that you need to really show something special to stand out, and Mind Museum simply don’t.
2/5
‘One Blood’ by Mind Museum is out now on Secret Chord Records.
Mind Museum links: Website|Facebook|Twitter
Words by Alex Phelan (@listen_to_alex)
