4 out of 5

Label: [PIAS] America

Producer: Allan Vest, Andy Nunez, Trent Bell

It wasn’t really that long between ‘Dream’ and ‘Built on Squares’, but with the dissolution of Dave Sardy’s See-Thru label, for some reason I thought most of the acts would go with it.  Enon, of course, became relative superstars, but the other fresh faces from the roster did seem to drop off.  And then the Mints re-emerged – on a label that hadn’t really put out anything solid to my knowledge and with sorta’ cheesy cover art – and though I saw it as a tether to a greater album (I guess I had this vision that Sardy brought with him a glorious study with a big bag o’ trick for all the Mints multi-instrument pleasures), I was happy that they’d returned, and ready to play the disc on a million repeats in the Tower Records where I was working.

I did play it, but I think my support was just going through the steps.  I didn’t have the right ears on at the time to ‘hear’ Built On Squares, because I wanted to it to be stuffed full of the same bombast as their debut.  The band felt stripped down, and with that came the removal of the flourished pomp that made ‘Dream’ so immediately grabbing.

Then time passed, and I’m re-listening to both albums.  And you’d be able to guess ’cause you’re smarter than me – now ‘Dream’ seems a little kitschy and ‘Built on Squares’ might be the Starlight Mints best album.  It IS more stripped down, but the core roster remained the same and there’s still plenty of guest stars adding vibraphones and wind instruments.  Sardy’s not there, but all three of those producers (two of whom are band members) assisted with production on album one, and so the sonic presentation is still pristine, a perfect mixing of all of the elements to create a delicious pop sandwich.  So the more laid back feeling would seem to have been a purposeful one, and it allows the most pure aspect of these songs – the rhythm, the groove, the toe-tapability – to shine, without some of the forced weirdness that came before or would show up again later.  Interestingly, you can spot the roots of the fuzzier work from ‘Drowaton’ and the dance-floor workouts from ‘Change’, but its blended skillfully into the mix such that, again, it doesn’t overwhelm.  A good example of this balance comes on ‘San Diego,’ where the song goes into a horn breakdown that uses a chord progression too similar to precious groups like The Shins, but the Mints keep it balanced just-so that it doesn’t tip the scales… before we return back to the chorus and verse.

Lyrically there’s still not so much to chew on, but Vest is less out there, using recognizable comparisons, and his vocal delivery feels much more assured.  The whole disc has a fun balance between feeling reigned in and yet loose, like when on vacation in some summery clime the group was suddenly inspired to knock out 10 pop gems.

Starlight Mints would undoubtedly produce some madly creative mash-ups of pop sounds later on, but in going back to relative basics for ‘Built on Squares,’ I think it allowed them to restructure things to have a proper base from which to build.  It’s not just a Flaming Lips-like group anymore; it became its own thing, and it very much started here.