Melissa Auf Der Maur

Out Of Our Minds

Written by: PP on 11/07/2010 02:48:11

I can't think of a much worse way to start an album as the one used by Melissa Auf Der Maur (ex-Hole, Smashing Pumpkins) on her second solo album "Out Of Our Minds", her first one in six years: A thumping, repetitive bass/drum combo that feels like a sledgehammer bashing your head in repeatedly for over two and a half minutes straight. Seriously, who the fuck approved "The Hunt" to be an introductory track - let alone to be a track at all!? "Our Of Our Minds", spot fucking on, every time I hear that stupid intro track I feel a burning desire to turn off the disc and never come back to it. Note to self: learn to not ignore burning desires.

It turns out "The Hunt" functions as a sound warning to anyone even remotely curious as to whether Melissa can pull off a comparable performance to the entirely decent "Auf Der Maur" in 2004. If you want to hear uninspired, boring, unoriginal alternative rock with whiny female vocals on top of minimalistic and pseudo-experimentalist instrumental landscape (strumming chords in unusual order does not make you experimental Melissa), then by all means, lose a few brain cells during the intro track. But in all seriousness, Brody Dalle's Spinnerette pulled off this very style a thousand times better last year, and even the crappy Juliette Lewis album had more going for it than "Out Of Our Minds". Aside from the remotely - and I mean remotely in every sense of the word - catchy title track, songs like "Lead Horse" just drone on aimlessly, as if they're wearing a blindfold in a pitch black room desperately trying to find the door, but stumble on sofas, lego bricks, beds and whatever other objects in the process. There's nothing, and I repeat, nothing interesting about "Out Of Our Minds". It's not even average - it's completely sub par, and the worst part about it is that it overstays it's welcome by at least 25 minutes. I could go on, but let me just summarize the record like this: there are some albums so good that inspire you to start a band. There are other bands quite good, whose songs you learn while practicing guitar. Then there's "Out Of Our Minds", that's pretty much the polar opposite of inspiration. If anything, it'll discourage you to start a band in fear of ending up like this.

3

Download: Out Of Our Minds
For the fans of: Juliette Lewis, Spinnerette
Listen: Myspace

Release date 30.03.2010
Roadrunner Records

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