Minmae ya te vas

Minmae
ya te vas


I know that Minmae’s new album ya te vas - which I believe is Spanish for “already you go” – is not bad, but thinking about how to describe it, nothing comes to mind. As I listen to it nothing is striking, some of it is subpar, and some of it is good, but it is mostly middle of the road indie rock.

The album - the trio’s sixth effort - is part Tortoise and part “unassuming vocal rock band.” Some songs rush around with spacey effects and distortion, others are more stagnant and ballad-like, but I don’t remember which songs, I don’t remember any lyrics or rhythms until the song is playing, and that’s not a good sign. That’s an unimpressive quality.

When the songs are playing, Minmae has the ability to play well and produce pleasing audio items. The album starts off rocking a bit Elvis Costello-like with a short 57 second piece, then it rolls into a basic little pop piece, decorated by a sorrow-filled slide guitar. All 11 tracks just fly on by, keeping a good feeling about them, grating a bit on the eardrums with screechy guitars and off-key singing at times, but generally decent stuff.
Eardrums may perk up a bit at the more southern rock/Uncle Tupelo sounding “My Conviction” with its dirty slide guitar. Lyrics like “It takes a real man to scratch /up and down a record like that / Those girls think that I’m wack, I’d do anything to get them both in the sack” on “The Lover’s Snatch” or “I put death on the guestlist, and he tried selling me knives / from a battle fought long ago / I swear he wore the same thing last time” on “Setting Sun Turns Blue” are also earcatching, but once it’s gone it’s gone.

This is an album that someone could easily get used to, and play repetitiously, when there is nothing else jumping to the top of the CD pile, but ya te vas isn’t gonna impress too many people.

The most interesting part of Minmae may be that their name – according to their Web site - came from the old cartoon Robotech, but it’s spelled wrong. That’s a bad sign guys.