This dour duo from New York are only happy when it rains. In a cemetery. Preferably after dark ...
Hometown: New York.
The lineup: Sean Kilfoyle (vocals, guitar), Amalie Bruun (vocals).
The background: Tis the season to be ... jolly miserable, actually. Without the "jolly". Advance reports concerning Minks suggested they were going to offer the sort of upbeat melancholy or jaunty sorrow purveyed by the Cure when they were trying desperately hard (but obviously not hard enough) not to sound like New Order. One early reviewer, listening to tracks from Minks' forthcoming debut album, concluded that the music was like, "If Robert Smith gave birth to a baby, and the baby was actually a cassette of Cure demos that had a lot more staying power than actual Cure demos", which hints at a certain bounciness. Meanwhile, the gentleman from the normally reliable Pitchfork went all the way and described it as not just "bouncy" but "buoyant" as well, concluding that Minks were a reminder that "quite a bit of even gloomy, grey-raincoat post-punk also had a spring in its step and a shake in its hips".
Don't get us wrong, we like the album, By the Hedge, a lot. In fact, we're going to stick our necks out and declare it the best advance copy of a 2011 album by a New York duo aiming for the great-coat dourness of post-punk Manchester that we've received all week. Just be warned: it's not happy-sad, it's just, well, sad. Relentlessly so. Look at the titles. There's one called Funeral Song, another called Life At Dusk, and another called Cemetary Rain. That's how depressed Minks are ? they can't even be bothered to spell "cemetery" properly. And notice how the cemetery isn't just a cemetery, which would be bad enough, but it's raining there as well. And a happy Monday to you, too!
Shaun Ryder would hate it, but then, he was part of a generation which came not to celebrate the myth of the miserablist Mancunian but to destroy it. Then again, after his enforced sojourn in the Australian jungle, maybe this would be just what the doctor ordered. Track after track of glum melodies and wan harmonies from the Nancy and Lee of dispirited US indie. Sheer dolour by numbers, and other puns on old Culture Club records. One of those tracks, Ophelia, is a homage to mournful 80s indie mores so effective it verges on parody. Another, Boys Run Wild, is a truly lovely dirge, if that's not a contradiction in terms, and it's not, not today anyway. The blissful blurriness of Bruises indicates a more than passing acquaintance with the My Bloody Valentine oeuvre. Throughout, the boy/girl vocal interplay works wonders, satisfying two demographics: angst-ridden student-age males and their masochistic girlfriends whose lot it is to appease them. Altogether now: 24-hour party people, plastic face, carnt smile, the white-out!
The buzz: "Minks harness a few of the best traits of gothic Brit new wave: ethereal synths, thumping, staccato basslines, and overall minimal production" ? Stereogum
The truth: If the Sarah label was still going, they might dismiss this as overly self-indulgent twee navel-gazing.
Most likely to: Make Shaun miss Gillian McKeith.
Least likely to: Make Bez shake his maracas.
What to buy: The album By the Hedge is released on 11 January by Captured Tracks.
File next to: Field Mice, Radio Dept, the Wake, the Cure.
Links: myspace.com/iamwitchcraft
Tuesday's new band: The Golden Retrievers.
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