Released - 7/27/10
Label - Modern Art / ILG
BLURB - Perhaps one of the biggest question marks entering the indie scene this year was Miniature Tigers. After breaking through in 2008 during the CMJ music festival in NYC, they quickly garnered some steam and actually toured with Ben Folds months later. The big selling point for Miniature Tigers is, predictably, their effortless ability to be quirky while actually putting out a solid product. "Tell it to the Volcano," the band's first full length, was filled with jaunts of indie pop and folk that captured the hearts of young hipsters everywhere. The group, looking to further elaborate on their sound, encored with "Fortress," but unfortunately they may have gone a bit off the deep end. "Fortress" wanders about and is the equivalent of musical kryptonite for those with short attention spans. But don't write them off quite yet. While the album comes off a bit experimental, there are certainly flashes of brilliance that will reward those that decide to stick around.
Rating - 6.5 out of 10
FULL STORY - I've been on the Miniature Tigers bandwagon for some time now, admittedly. Their ability to spit out catchy, thoughtful, melodic and clever indie-rock tunes is, if nothing else, impressive. So going into this album, I had very high hopes and expectations for more of the same.
Unfortunately, opener 'Mansion of Misery' fails to live up to the above precedent. The track starts out catchy enough and has much more production value than past records, but it just kind of sits there. The song has about three core, solid sections, but the band has trouble tying them all together into one. This results in a lack of momentum and unity and hurts what could have been a great song. Not the best way to start an album off.
'Rock N' Roll Mountain Troll' is immediately likable and instantly redeems the band for their opening track. After a brief intro, pounding acoustic guitars (I know...quite the oxy moron) serve as the foundation for this song. While chord changes are few and far between, Miniature Tigers somehow find a way to keep the listeners attention by constantly building momentum and depth. 'Rock N' Roll Mountain Troll' certainly features a variety of inane and weird lyrics, but you'll inevitably find yourself singing along without even realizing what you're saying.
'Dark Tower' finds vocalist Charlie Brand offering up some self reflection as he pines over pursuing his career or a girl. The song is beautifully constructed and features tons of backing vocals and melodies, while remaining gentle and full of air.
"Don't wait for me girl, cause I don't know what I'm after - you or my career. Don't say it's the end, cause I could not take it. Do you know me still?"
The track continues to revolve around this premise of Brand not entirely knowing what he wants to do with his life, feeling ever more alone. Brand goes as far as to compare this to living alone in a dark tower where he's constantly living in a daydream. Clearly one of the more serious songs on the record, 'Dark Tower' is not only relatable and honest, but enjoyable.
Neon Indian throws his weight around guest-producing 'Goldskull' and bringing his chillwave persona with him. 'Goldskull' is very down tempo and stabbed with lines of bright synthesizers - typical Neon Indian. While it's a decent song, parts of it just don't feel right. It's not a Miniature Tigers track and lacks a certain authenticity to it. More or it less, it just sounds like Miniature Tigers doing a Neon Indian song.
Miniature Tigers go all 'Animal Collective-y' on 'Bullfighter Jacket.' The song opens up with some sort of tribal chant that you would here on Strawberry Jam, which regrettably resurfaces throughout the track. What's worse is that 'Bullfighter Jacket' - minus the chanting, is probably the best song on the album. Clearly, Miniature Tigers are using their second record to really wander about their musical capacity and mess around with sounds and concepts. I get that, I am okay with that. But at some point as a band you need to realize who you are, and just stick with that.
And so with that being said, the album is still great. The cleverness and wittiness with which Miniature Tigers write and compose songs is still there, and present - but I think for some tracks they just went a bit too far. They've got some many ideas and concepts and sounds floating around that maybe it was just too much to compress down into one album. This really shows as the record is kind of all over the place and never establishes any kind of flow or solidarity. What's really missing are the genuine, simple, quirky tracks like 'Hot Venom' or 'The Wolf' that we all fell in love with on the first album. Oh well...just Miniature Tigers I guess. I bought this album and will certainly buy the next.
Tracks
1.) Mansion of Misery
2.) Rock & Roll Mountain Troll
3.) Dark Tower
4.) Gold Skull (Ft. Neon Indian)
5.) Bullfighter Jacket
6.) Egyptian Robe
7.) Japanese Woman
8.) Tropical Birds
9.) Lolita
10.) Coyote Enchantment
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