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The Mint Chicks: Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!

This is not how I expected a great album from The Mint Chicks to sound. Where ‘F*ck the Golden Youth’ came across as a confused and somewhat compromised cross-section of the band’s talents, this follow up sees the Auckland four playing to one of their strengths - catchy buzzpop anthems - and playing hard. It certainly veers towards the poppier end of the band’s spectrum, but boy do they do it well this time around! Opener Ockham’s Razor is about as ‘out there’ as they get here (save the chaotic She’s Back on Crack), with its stabby, minimal bassline and manic guitar fuzz. Singles This is Your Last Chance to be Famous and Welcome to Nowhere are two of the catchier songs in the band’s eclectic catalogue. The remaining tracks are consistently listenable, with a number of potential singles. Worth special mention are the buzz-pop brilliance of Walking Off a Cliff Again, the suitably dreamy Sleeping During the Day and beautiful outro 100 Minutes of Silence. This album is not as varied as previous releases and not as challenging - but it’s hard to care when the entire package is just so consistently good. Besides, you’ve always got those earlier releases to go back to should you require a fix of their more ‘adventurous’ material.

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