Oh, come on. I dig the Lips, too, but for this Oklahoma band to furnish its third album of sun-warped indie pop with such a referential cover is a conceit-- especially since the bands hardly sound alike. Starlight Mints singer Allen Vest's fey vocals more closely channel Ray Davies in the Kinks' more ambitious moments, when the UK's most ingratiating songwriter was at his least chummy and most conductorly. Vest hovers nearest the Lips' Wayne Coyne when he loiters in an unconvincing falsetto, but his update conveys less power because he's reluctant to sing out. Had these Candyland denizens orchestrated opener "Pumpkin" less busily-- without the wailing wall-of-sound brass, and with more breathing room for the vocals-- Vest's high notes would've carried more beauty. Instead, he becomes a bit player in a boldly decorous milieu. Imagine Phil Spector-era Beatles without John Lennon's messianic gravitas and you have a good (albeit generous) impression of Drowaton.
To pull off compelling rococo you've got to weep with every brushstroke, ornament your songs with floor-to-ceiling detail in supplication to god because nothing less will do, and unless everyone's left naked and penniless afterward your shit ain't worth the pilgrimage. As ornate orchestral pop goes, Starlight Mints are too oddball-flip. They cram their songs with every sound imaginable without making a compelling case for any, and music that's so congested needs a sense of hierarchy. They seem mortified of silence and attempt to fashion, from a dab of fuzz guitar or a dusting of rhodes piano, an unnecessary instrumental hinge for every transition.
Drowaton's best songs are notable for what they don't do. "What's Inside of Me?" doesn't let excessive adornment get in the way of its album-best chorus. When Vest reveals, "I just want the world to see/ What's inside of me," in one of the album's rare long-faced moments, it's a refreshing change-up from Starlight Mints' usual goofiness. "Pearl's (Submarine #2)", meanwhile, resists over-variegating its instrumentation to focus instead on variations on one instrument, the guitar. The song deploys several of them at different volumes and levels of distortion; a muted slide-bent version, deriving wondrous warmth from a vintage-sounding tube amp, barely stays long enough for coffee but takes top prize with a sinuous line. And "Rhino Stomp" sacrifices vocals in exchange for the cinematic excess lacking elsewhere. Although the song bites "I Am The Walrus"'s pizzicato plod and invocation of fat, gray animals harder than Drowaton's cover does the Flaming Lips, its booming conviction offers a blueprint for the Mints to follow on future outings.
After the good comes the unfortunate-- songs that hold promise but find little success because the band is so overzealous with its seasonings. The title track bristles with at least 29 string sounds, 14 of which have not yet been catalogued by biologists, making its dusk-creeps-in slinkiness a humid, mysterious affair, but I wish the band had dwelt longer on the interplay of drums and tension-building radar pulses. "Rosemarie"'s problems stem more from gag-me-with-a-spoon Beatles worship than overproduction, and those MIDI trumpets are pretty awesome, but the song would still cut a more fetching silhouette if it shed a few layers. At moments like these it'd be nice if the band's appreciation for the Flaming Lips-- a band that understands the value of rough edges-- translated into their music, as well as their artwork.
