I have three shows from last week to review, but I need to mix it up and throw down an album review first. Especially when I find a great album that is mostly overlooked, as is the case yet again with Menomena's latest offering and fourth LP, Mines.
I first discovered Menomena upon the release of their third LP, Friend and Foe, in the same way I discover a lot of great albums, via Pitchfork, in particular their review with the Best New Music seal of approval. It was actually my roommate at the time who bought the CD and got into it first. It took me a bit of getting used to their sound and quasi-oddball songwriting, but especially once I started picking up on the lyrics, I quickly got hooked.
This happened sort of the same way with Mines. Not exactly the most upbeat album (perhaps they should rename themselves Melancholia), it took me a bit to get into this album again, not so much this time because their sound was unfamiliar but because I was apparently not morose enough to get into it. Now that summer is over, and whatever unfulfilled hopes and dreams went with it are descending along with the angle of the sun in the sky, the ruined statue on the cover art inspires reflection upon the unreconcilable ruination laid evident with the absence of blinding summer bliss. Yet something is comforting about the wilderness that cradles the human remains that are left to slowly rest and rot...
This is the inspiration of the soul behind Menomena: deep, philosophical, stark and grand. And I'm not typically a lyrics guy, but their lyrics somehow speak volumes to me. While they can be cryptic, there's usually a meaning I can glean, even if I don't fully understand it. The best comparison I can come up with is Radiohead, for they even have some tracks with very few yet very poignant lyrics. Here is the lyrics to the entire song Tithe, which clocks at just under five minutes:
spending the best years of a childhood horizontal on the floor
like a bobsled minus the teamwork and the televised support
and nothing sounds appealing
someone retired on a percentage of the tithe that paved these roads
they lead to nowhere but they're still gridlocked, made of Solomon's pure gold
beneath the door frame waiting for earthquakes after the rapture comes and goes
the saints went marching, the trumpets salving, the chosen ones are phoning a goal
and nothing sounds appealing
The lyrics are devastating, yet I don't find them depressing for some reason. It's like a scientific result that is not what you hoped for, whether it's because it proved a hypothesis incorrect or whether confirming a bleak truth, either way it's still a fragment of truth that is appreciable for the nature of its infallibility.
While the lyrics indeed serve as the face of Menomena's strange and grotesque appeal, the music fleshes out the body, providing a decadent wonderland of technically precise and inventive songwriting, on which to color with the sharp musings of the Portland quartet. Again I cannot help but to comment on the scientific approach of the musicianship. While there is a fair share of electronic samples, the arrangement is still primarily rock instrumentation, and shows are still a completely 'live' experience. What keeps the feel and sound of the band distinct and not easily lumped in with other sound fads is that they have a more stripped down sound, with much less reliance on guitars and consistent use of piano, sax, various percussion instruments, and synth lines to color in over the basic drum set and low-fat electronic synth backbone. The cleanliness of the sound is occasionally marred by a jagged guitar line here and there to give an aggressive edge, but you will remember the piano and sax lines far more easily than the guitar lines, which is a credit to the delicate balance they strike in the songwriting.
The album is on the whole a tad less upfront than Friend and Foe, but there is no less complexity to the songwriting or profundity to the lyrics. I would definitely start with their last album, as this one definitely has more of an afterglow feel (I never did get into the first album, I am the Fun Blame Monster, although it was critically acclaimed, and the second album's existence I only discovered today, which was produced as a soundtrack to a local dance crew). But when you are musing about the emptiness of this post-summer autumn or the loneliness of your introspective self, reach for Menomena to fill your sunset with colors and your mind with reassurance that the loneliness, emptiness, and frustration is not only an inevitable orchestration of the hands of fate, but also that the aspect can be an acceptable and beautiful one to view and appreciate.
Menomena - Taos
Menomena - Tithe
Menomena - Five Little Rooms
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