Labels: House Arrest
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I am definitely here for more Mineral. Especially if they can churn out some gorgeous lengthy twinklers like Aurora here. As soon as that warm guitar kicks in: ASMR for old emo bastards. This feels like the music that should have happened after that gorgeous 6 song Gloria Record EP, which is odd as that was about 20 years ago now. Good grief. 20 years. Anyway. Aurora is exactly what you’d expect from Mineral if you have ever listened to the second LP or the early Gloria Record stuff. Chris Simpson wails, guitars gently weep, everything soars and sweeps. It is emotional. Bands like Coldplay and Snow Patrol may have ruined this sort of thing for you but if you blot all that out and focus on the fact that once upon a time you loved Mineral and sad sad emo bands, then there is a lot to take from this 8 minuter. My main gripe here is that they fade the song out. Come on Mineral. You know it’s easy to end an emo song, just smash it into feedback and sobbing and break it down. The other track here “Your Body Is The Word” sounds more like Sunny Day Real Estate than Mineral ever have. Thinking the latter half of that band’s career than the first mind you. Not so into this but it’s certainly not awful. It’s a bit more straight forward and doesn’t really sit particularly near the classic Mineral sound for me.
For some reason this is being packaged with a book (which I have not read and am not really desperate to), so this is ridiculously expensive for two songs. Pretty solid though and if Mineral drop a new LP I can absolutely guarantee that it will be better than whatever American Football do this year.
PS just realised this will highlight my 20 year old Mineral reviews on the right hand side, I often cringe when I go back and read my old stuff (I have deleted a couple of reviews that I was utterly ashamed of, but at least we grow and change.) Thankfully these aren’t disastrous and I smile at recognising the 20ish year old I was when I wrote them. Nice bit of nostalgia all round.