In Stores Now: Mines by Menomena

Cover Illustration of the novel Gladiator by Philip Wylie, 1965

When I first heard about Portland band Menomena, everything about them seemed so interesting. They had a debut album called i am the fun blame monster!, a phrase that is also an anagram for "Menomena's first album". And the album was sold in the form of a flip-book! The band wrote songs using a sampling software that they wrote themselves, weaving snippets together on a computer and then teaching themselves to play the resulting composition as a live band. They augmented their standard rock trio setup with baritone saxophone and three distinct singing voices. Basically, I was having difficulty at the time distinguishing between "interesting" and "gimmicky", a problem I still struggle with today.

Somewhere between the release of the band's 2007 album Friend or Foe, and their new one, Mines, Menomena stopped seeming so gimmicky. Is that why I'm having trouble getting into their new album? Or is it because they've finally made an album that is too opaque for me to sink my teeth into? Mines is a great-sounding album, but I have no idea what it's about. The minimalist sleeve is composed almost entirely of a photo of statuary in the forest, and the songs have cryptic titles like "Taos", "Bote", and "Intil". I expect this level of crypticness from some bands, but in the past I've always felt I had some idea what Menomena was doing - this time around, I feel stymied.

Maybe I just need to spend more time with Mines (although I wouldn't be trying to write about the album if I hadn't already given it a good half-dozen listens). I hesitate to say that the songs on Mines are weaker than their past work - when I listen to them one at a time, they still show the unique composition style the band has always had, and there are plenty of solid hooks. The songs just don't always add up to something bigger. Some of the album's songs show a lot of potential to grow on me, though - "Five Little Rooms", for instance, is vintage Menomena, with a great bari-sax part, layers of piano and percussion, and a creepy, psychosexual lyric.

"Five Little Rooms" by Menomena