Mineral Kings - The Course Of Empire

Hear The Track Here

To be honest I'm not sure whether this is a CD or an EP because, as far as I can see, there are only four tracks on it (usually the sign of an EP) but it's called an album on the site... Well no doubt we'll find out in the fullness of time. Mineral Kings are a new name to me through the Rebelriffs blog request system consisting of Art Forte, Tony Morosini, Carv Tefft and an unnamed teenage girl singer (I read somewhere). Musically their roots are firmly in West Coast grunge although they could have just as easily based the sound in Detriot or NYC both in terms of content and attitude. Certainly Bennies and Coke (track two) could have come from either highly wired (and not in a good way) city.

New Third World (track one) ploughed the more usual gunge furrow and while I am not much inclined to the genre when its allied with a good song it can be devastating. Now while Mineral Kings aren't Nirvana (nor would I expect them to be, they do sound surprisingly like a modern version of the band, and that to me ears is a good thing. Certainly between these two tracks you will get the message that this is a serious band, New Third World being a song about the 99% and Bennies and Coke being about the wasted (in every sense of the word) generation that this particular recession is going to create. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a hard copy of the EP in time so most of this review was conducted online and it has its consequences; not the least being that while the songs were meaty and full of crunch the actual online sound was thin and weedy and I presume its because of the streaming.

The videos sound a lot better but there are only three; New Third World, Bennies and Coke and Broken Dreams (track three) Broken Dreams (the video) supplies the name, Olivia Tefft, of the female vocalist I mentioned earlier who supplies the backing vocals and who made the video. Out of the three Broken Dreams is probably the more conventional rock song of the trio and - again - the video sound is far, far better than the stream from their site. The Course of Empires, the title track and track four is almost punky as it springs out of the speakers at you and gets punkier as it goes along and easily the best sound of the four tracks being streamed from the site. Almost as if it were an entirely different recording session... Cracking track though and if that didn't make any sense to you, it means I liked it a lot. Fact is, I like the bands lyrical attitude a lot and their music (despite the online drawbacks) sounds more than promising. Certainly I'll be watching out from them, and I would dearly love a hard copy of the EP or (failing that) The Course Of Empires - my personal favourite of the four tracks on display.

Excellent grungy-type rock. Highly Recommended (and topical too)