Minuit's previous album, 2009's findmebeforeidiealonelydeath.com, was an intriguing experiment for the New Zealand trio. In comparison to their sleeker and more electronic earlier releases, their third album introduced a rawer, rockier aesthetic. Live instrumentation moved in alongside sequencers and the overall production was closer to that of a garage indie-rock band than a club-friendly dance outfit.
New album, Last Night You Saw This Band – released on the day of the alleged Mayan apocalypse – sees them folding that sense of liveliness and spontaneity into their more established sound to stunning effect. The production is the best of the band's career - bright, open, polished and warm. The songs are kept simple and memorable. With a strong foundation of inviting production and well-crafted the songs, the band permit themselves to explore their sound in all its incarnations.
The Love That Won't Shut Up is an angular, post-punk number. Book Of The Dead euphorically snatches together percussive tribal rhythms, crushing sub-bass and declamatory vocal refrains. Ghost is a strange, hovering dubstep ballad while Heaven lurches hazily alongside a Timbaland hip hop rhythm. Closer, Sit Down Beside Me is a Beatles-esque piano lullaby.
Remarkably, it all hangs together. Frontwoman Ruth Carr's idiosyncratic melodies and lyrical sensibilities ensure there's a distinct flavour to the entire record. Regardless of style or tone, Carr manages to inject a strange, lyrical phrase or hook that irretrievably twists the heart around each song. “How shall we settle this?” she crows on Warheads. “Let's settle this with bombs. I think of you, my darling, when the warheads start to fall.”
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