Congratulations to me for getting back from Baltimore.  What a cool place.

The best part about getting home?  Possibly that my brother bought me a (full) bottle of tequila in excahnge for having finished the (nearly empty) bottle of tequila I had before I left.  But more likely the best part about getting was that the new Mint Chicks cd that I ordered finally came.

Screens.  I can’t remember if it was last summer or the summer before tht I first started listening to the Mint Chicks…  (I just looked it up.  It was two years ago in March.)  When I first heard them, I went all over the place trying to track down all the cds, eps, 7″s, 10″, etc. that I could.  Within a month, I had everything they’d released (save one 7″ that I still can’t find) so it was pretty exciting to have a new record to get.    I’m sure a lot of fans felt the same way- even though I did all my discovering in an intense three week period, it’s still been like 2.5 years since the last record came out.

I think the jury is still out on Screens.  They’ve always been a synth-friendly pop band, but this record takes the “-friendly” suffix away, kind of like how Devo started, and then kind of like how Devo kept going.  Which is fine, but at my heart I’m still pretty much a guitar rock dude, though maybe that’s slowly changing.  It’s slower than the previous record- even the fastest songs aren’t close to the frenetic pace that was common on prior releases.  None of the individual tracks immediately stand out the way “Crazy Yes Dumb No” or “Walking Off a Cliff Again” did on the previous record, but “Don’t Sell Your Brain Out Baby” comes close: 

 They remind me a lot of Hooray For Earth on this record, which probably doesn’t mean much to many people, but so it goes.  How about a slightly more mellow Cripples?  Still no?  I don’t know.  I’ve got to make a fairly long drive this afternoon, so I’ll be able to listen to the record a handful of times.  (At 30 minutes, it’s their shortest full-length record.)  I think blasting it in the car will be a good listening experience, certainly better than while on the treadmill at the gym and sitting in front of the computer.   It hasn’t yet been released in the US, I don’t think.  You can’t find it on iTunes, and it’s crazy expensive on Amazon, if they even have it in stock, but hopefully that situation will change soon. I can’t recommend spending the 30 bucks or whatever it would currently cost, but maybe the record will grow on me… We’ll see.