The phrase, “dead mint”, meaning something extremely good, is one you’d expect to be coming from the mouth of a person from Liverpool after hearing The Beatles for the first time. It is also a term for a coin that is incorrect or damaged when made at the Royal Mint.
Whilst you probably couldn’t claim that Nottingham’s Dead Mint sound like The Beatles, they are pretty darn good. And there are four of them. They could be compared to a slightly damaged coin, one thrown down a flight of stairs or one that has been catapulted from a pocket whilst going particularly tonto at a Dead Mint gig, such is the glorious racket they perpetrate.
At nine tracks and only 27 minutes long, it’s not hanging around for a spliff and a cup of tea. There’s psych, there’s grunge, there’s ear bleeding distortion, a la, a very bloody Valentine.
The guitar has a wonderful growl, like an aggrieved Alsatian. The vocals are pained and plaintive. Bass crackles like static on a pylon. The drums are being annihilated like their life depends on it.
This LP is more an experience than just a record. It’s an installation art piece. It could be band members slumped over instruments, heads and hands pummelled. Ears bleeding. Microphones embedded in walls. Just constant feedback from an amp. You get deafness as a freebie.
There’s a waltzing doom-rock aspect to many of the songs. A Wurlitzer of Magic Roundabout levels of trippy, paranoid frenzy whilst A Clockwork Orange is being played with eyelids pinned open. Whilst never advocating the use of narcotics, dudes, this would be mind-melting on some serious hallucinogenics. Failing that, getting several pints down at The Bodega and getting dangerously close to the PA would be a good approximation.
They formed about two years ago from the embers of many Nottingham bands like Grey Hairs and Witches Mark, Alex, Amy, Tim, and Tom formed the Famous Five minus one and went about having scraps with the Sheriff of Nottingham called Baldrick and several gallons of scrumpy. That’s what it is, brain melting cider not drugs.
Without trying to put you off buying or listening to this album, it’s destined to sound at its pinnacle when melting the skin off of your skull, standing in front of them, stage right, next to a speaker. The loss of hearing will be the least of your worries.
It is reet dead mint, me duck.
