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 Caught in the Carousel - "There will be music despite everything"
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Mini Mansions
Mini Mansions
Ipecac
Just a glance at the album art of L.A.'s Mini Mansions' self-titled debut makes you curious to hear their music. The cover features a creepy looking stuffed animal sitting on a light. Inside you find the equally creepy naked doll with its face all marked up, holding a hammer and posed next to a teddy bear and broken concrete blocks. Finding out the band is a side project for Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman, only makes you even more interested. Your curiosity is well-served here; Mini Mansions' debut is a fascinating blend of melodic pop, gorgeous Beatle-esque harmonies and bizarre cabaret musical theater.
The album is framed around "Vignette #1," "Vignette #2," and "Vignette #3" positioned at the start, middle, and end, respectively. "Vignette #1" and "Vignette #2" both sound lifted from a twisted, carnival show from hell. "Vignette #3" stands out from the others, with its heavier guitar-based instrumentation. Songs like "The Room Outside" and "Crime Of The Season" are catchy, psychedelic trips that show off the band's infectious vocals and intriguingly off-kilter sound "Seven Sons" is a driving track, reminiscent of The Coral's debut while the almost overwhelming "Majik Marker" sounds like a brilliant, but crazy, goth-tinged nightmare.
Elsewhere, the Queen-like "Monk" and intense "W?nderbars," highlights Mini Mansions' ability to vocally combine beauty with just the right amount of attitude and the "Kiddie Hypnogogia" starts out with a delicate piano intro that segues into a synth-heavy, theatrical-like chorus.
Mini Mansions' debut offers infectious melodies and dazzling vocals, but also provides just the right amount of the weird and the bizarre.
—Jessica Simons
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