Customer Reviews

Mind If We Make Love to You

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a stunning album from the best pop band on Earth today! Take the sounds of the Beach Boys, Beatles, Byrds, and Association, add 21st century sensibility, blend it all together and you have the Wondermints! This is one of the Mint's best CD's, yet it doesn't surpass their CD with Lisa Mychols, "Lost Winter's Dream." Hey Mints, what ya waiting for? How about recording with Lisa again?! Maybe Brian would produce. Keep up the great work!

I have been a fan of the Wondermints since I saw them backing Brian Wilson on the Pet Sounds tour at BB King's blues club in New York. I had never heard of them, but I marveled at their versatility and overall musicality. They brought the 35 year old tunes to life with stunning detail and soul. When I found out that they were an original band with a body of their own work I had to investigate. Their previous 3 albums blew me away completely. They seemed to amalgamate many of my favorite bands and artists into a blend that sounds vintage yet simultaneusly fresh. I have been spreading the gospel of the 'mints since then. I can hear in the new album that the Brian Wilson band experience has had a profound impact on their sound and style. Certainly his influence loomed large before (take Tracy Hide for instance - could have been a lost cut from Pet Sounds), but on the new album they seem to have lost some of the British pop rock influence that so endeared them to me to focus on being the 21st century answer to the beach boys (certainly the Mike Love act doesn't qualify as such.) On "Ride" I am almost certain that Carl Wilson's death was some unkind hoax as the similarity in Darian Sahanaja's is uncanny. Overall the guitars are scaled back to focus on more keyboard based arrangements. The vocals are very strong. Darian rises to the top as usual as both composer and vocalist. I gave the album 5 stars which I was hesitant to do because they have done better work. By the standards of contemporary pop music it is a 5 star affair. Besides, I wasn't going to be the one to spoil a perfect average rating. Long live the Wondermints!...

It would seem to the avid fan that the "mints" are taking a rather long journey to the heights of megastardom. I myself think that Darian, Nick and Mike are enjoying the rather comfortable stroll. Since the debut "Wondermints" demo days of promise to the startling "Wonderful World of..." covers where they fabulously reinterpreted some classic tunes. It now seems that following the brilliant if unconsistent "Bali" they have finally hit the nerve on the head with "Mind If We Make Love To You". Guesting on the album is genius Brian Wilson though I am hard pressed to hear it. Luckily this doesn't matter one bit as they simply trawl through the obvious influences from Brother Brian to the Beatles and take a slight detour to Badfinger and Todd Rundgren among others. Some of the music on here is quite simply amazing with the final four tracks as good as anything you will ever hear. Particular note for myself though has to go to "Another Way" which according to interviews with Mr Sahanaja was put together in a rush and only just got onto the record! The background harmonies that come into the mix a minute from the end are simply heavenly and make the hairs stand on end everytime. God only knows that if they had acres of press coverage this gig would rule the world, but then it wouldn't be as fun would it?!

I'm stunned, I don't know what to say. If you listen to "So Nice" and don't have a tear in your eye by the end then you aren't human. Nick Walusko's lead vocal on this track will just melt your heart... Mike D'Amico's three songs make it very clear that he's capable of writing great music too. Darian Sahanaja's songs are so gorgeous, and he sings like an angel! Song after song, each one is more special than the one before. The kind of music you might have thought would never be made again, but there it is. Congratulations to the 'Mints for a stunning disc, words fail me when trying to describe it. You MUST get it, trust me, you must...

I could never really get into the Wondermints. Sure there were moments - "Tracy Hide," "Sting O' Luv" - but the band had this annoying hipster irony gap, creating songs that were warmly awash in lush sounds of '60s and '70s AM radio ambrosia yet coolly aloof because they were only about their own cleverness. I mean, what the hell are "Playtex Aviary," "...Greg Lake" and "Proto-Pretty" about anyway? Little wonder that the 'Mints finest moment until now was the covers album.

Perhaps being the house band for Pet Sounds taught 'em a thing or two, but damn if Mind If We Make Love To You doesn't offer up a batch of songs almost as lovely, affecting and personal - if not aching - as anything on BW's bombshell.

This album is so good that you're still marveling over how stunning the last number was halfway through the next one! If today were 1974, Mind would already be a chart monster!

Finally, the Wondermints offer the best L.A. song since Beulah's "Gene Autry" with "Ride." And then there's the album's truly celestial moment: those hair-raising backing vocals from that supreme '60s L.A. pop icon - Evie Sands. Her comeback is just so overdue!

Mix the Beach Boys and Billy Joel and one is left with the great power pop of the Wondermints. Like many others, I was introduced to the band after seeing Brian Wilson live, and was just amazed by their instrumental and vocal acumen. Each song on this album is fresh, but they also have an immediate familarity that will keep the melody in your head for days.

Never heard of the Wondermints until browsing Amazon suggested I might like this (browsing America, Gerry Beckley, Jeff Larson, Timothy Schmit, Beckley-Lamm-Wilson). This is probably the strongest CD I have heard in the last 10-20 years. Every song could be a top 40 hit, but current radio oligopoly will never play them. Alas, this will have to be the best indie record out there that never makes it to radio. Brian Wilson (his backing band = Wondermints) knows gold when he hears it, but the industry execs just don't "get it" anymore. Too bad...

That's my reaction to every single track on this remarkable CD. I am brand new to the Wondermints and I feel like I've just discovered the world's most valuable, and most hidden musical treasure.

I purchased the CD on iTunes yesterday and have been playing it non-stop ever since with increased appreciation every time through. The thing is, I usually tire quickly of music, even music I LOVE. But that's not the case here.... These tunes are all so listenable, so melodic, so surprizingly creative, that I find myself yearning to hear more. Really, like a breath of fresh of air is the ambiance of this music. I just love having this vibe filling my space.

How did I get here? Well, maybe not surprizing, I'm a huge fan of Brian Wilson. I love his music and him as a person. He has a very special gift among all songwriters. Well, it turned out I saw the Wondermints backing him in concert when he wheeled through here in 2001. I remember thier introduciton onstage, but it has not been until now that I've heard them separately as a band, and, what a band!

These guys are amazingly creative artists. Wonderful songwriting. Yes, the strong influence of Brian's music is indelibly stamped on everything the Wondermints do... its that quirkly good feeling harmonic brilliance, but more than that. The music make you FEEL GOOD in your soul. I hear Beatles influence too. But its really very original stuff, and unique unto itself. This album has joined the ranks of my most treasured recordings, and has been a wonderful 'introduction' (for me) of what has quickly become my favorite band.

If you don't own this record, don't hestitate in getting it... I cannot imagine anyone not liking it, except for those that are tone deaf and so full of angst that they cannot bear to listen to anything pretty and soul stirring.

This band needs the support of music lovers everywhere. There's so much trash out there passing for music, its a shame these guys aren't hugely known. They sure deserve to be.

.....because three losers rated this CD one star. Everyone else has given it five stars. This is a fantastic album, in some ways better than the self-titled debut, and head and shoulders over Bali. The Wondermints don't have a heavy power-pop guitar sound, but the melodies and breezy production are fantastic. These guys are phenomenal musicians and songwriters. There is a reason Brian Wilson loves these guys so much - it's because The Wondermints are a throwback to a day when groups created art and not a sound.

This CD deserves 6 stars, it's just so good. 45 minutes of sheer bliss for a lover of pop. The best work these guys have done and the best CD I've heard in a long time. Every tune is perfectly crafted.