In an art history course in college, I was made to see a live performance of the opera "Hansel and Gretel," sung entirely in English. Watching these people sing -- sing -- rhymeless, mundane speech in a language I can understand was, frankly, pretty silly. I imagine it's something few have experienced, but if, like me, you are uncultured enough to have little to no interest in ever going to the opera, take heart, because Minus The Bear's Menos el Oso takes the act of melodizing the banal to dizzyingly silly new heights.
I'm so strongly tempted just to copy and paste the lyrics to the entirety of Menos el Oso; they say better than I ever could why this album fails so miserably, and hand-picking the worst of the bad is nearly impossible, like choosing which of your children you hate the most. The lyrics are cheap romanticisms of the "slice of life" variety plaguing far too many indie acts these days, glorifying minutiae with a mind-numbing artlessness: tales of long drives and alcohol and friends and snow and memories and growing up, all impossibly prosaic and spattered with disgraceful, sophomoric metaphors. The melodies are aimless and irrelevant, existing only as a necessity to carry the words.
The most distressing part of all this is that the instrumentation isn't so terrible. Two twinkling guitars stab at you mathematically, sometimes tangling themselves up in each other to nice effect. The chugging, high-hat-driven rhythms are monotonous at worst, but still clearly alive. There is proficient musicianship here. But with next to nothing to say, lyrically or musically, and with the nihilistically "clever" song titles of their past, it's clear that there's just no point to Minus the Bear.
From "Fulfill the Dream": "I saw her with another man walking downtown/ She's not mine and she'll never be/ By my side walking downtown/ I only met her once before/ She was alone in a back booth/ A drink and a cigarette/ Smoking like she was waiting for someone/ Me stealing glances as she stole my breath/ The next one's on me."
1. The Game Needed Me
2. Memphis & 53rd
3. Drilling
4. The Fix
5. El Torrente
6. Pachuca Sunrise
7. Michio's Death Drive
8. Hooray
9. Fulfill the Dream
10. The Pig War
11. This Ain't a Surfin' Movie 1. The Game Needed Me
2. Memphis & 53rd
3. Drilling
4. The Fix
5. El Torrente
6. Pachuca Sunrise
7. Michio's Death Drive
8. Hooray
9. Fulfill the Dream
10. The Pig War
11. This Ain't a Surfin' Movie