It's New To Me: Tell It to the Volcano by Miniature Tigers (2008)

Illustration by Antin Manastyrsky from Chervona Shapochka: Dramovana Kazka v Dvokh Diiakh by Iaroslav Vilshenko, 1921

So Bishop Allen came through town again last week and played a great show. I'm not going to write a review of the show because I reviewed the last one, but I will say that it was great to hear them do a new arrangement of my favorite Bishop Allen song, "Ghosts Make Good Company", which I've never heard them play live. We were expecting to see Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band open the show, but their van broke down, so a band called Miniature Tigers opened the show. I admit I was immediately sucked into their set - punchy hooks on the lead guitar and strummed acoustic guitar with real Beatlesy vocals. They got to play a fairly long opening set, and their hit-miss ratio was impressive - only one or two songs didn't do anything for me. After the show, my special lady friend bought their album, Tell It to the Volcano, and I'm glad she did.

With 11 songs that add up to 29 minutes of music, Tell It to the Volcano didn't really blow my mind or anything, but it is a very pleasant record. Based on their live show, I was expecting the record to be major-label-style power-pop - you know, like Rooney or Phantom Planet. Not unreasonable considering that Phantom Planet's lead guitarist Darren Robinson had been part of the touring band we'd seen. But the record is something a little different - the first song and obvious single "Cannibal Queen" and the second track "Like or Like Like" do sound like commercial pop, but things detour a little from there. For one thing, I don't think that Darren Robinson played on this record - the acoustic guitar and keyboards are more prominent in the arrangements, but this is a good thing. It makes for a more quirky and homespun sound that is more reminiscent of Oh Inverted World, the first Shins record, than anything else.

The Kinks references are there, and much of the record has the self-contained feeling that comes from bedroom-recorded pop albums. The album's title track sounds like mid-period Of Montreal, "Hot Venom" borrows the keyboard tricks of Grandaddy, and "The Wolf" has a jerky acoustic guitar sound that reminds me of the Starlight Mints. Charlie Brand's vocals are a little lightweight, but that's what his songs call for, and he seems to be developing a nice lyrical style, evoking a sense of time and place with historical and animal imagery.

My favorite song on the record is "Dino Damage", an early Miniature Tigers song that dates back to their homemade EPs. This was the song that really caught my ear in their live show, and I was a little disappointed when I first heard the "studio" version. The intro lead is a synth, not the keening electric guitar from their gigs, but the pulsing, rolling vibe created by the strummed guitar and drums is nice, like the Shins' "One By One All Day", and the vocal hook is excellent. I worry a little that Charlie Brand may follow his more commercial instincts and move away from this quirky sound, but for now I'm enjoying Tell It to the Volcano a lot.

"Dino Damage" by Miniature Tigers