Album Review: Minibar - Road Movies (2001)

Minibar - Road Movies (2001)

What starts out as a somber confession soon turns into a bouncy romp on “Holiday From Myself,” the opening track of Minibar’s 2001 debut Road Movies. While the song itself is strong, it references the album’s MO all too soon; indeed, the album is in essence a holiday, one taken by a British band to the American southwest. The resulting music sounds like a cross between Travis and The Wallflowers, which is something that is actually original and looks good on paper. It all certainly sounds nice: the confident (yet very British) song craft filtered through an alt-country/folk-rock lens makes for a very pleasant listening experience; however, it all almost feels a bit too calculated. The themes and lyrical imagery of the album are too reliant on an idealized Americana, which is obviously faux in their case. Their inclusion of “Choked Up” (written by alt-country hero Ryan Adams) is excellent, but again it suggests that the band is stretching to connect with a fundamentally different musical lineage, and it doesn’t help that T-Bone Burnett produced Road Movies either. Where this counts the most is on the ballads. Nothing sounds bad, but “Lost In The Details” and “Sheer Volume Of Traffic” just don’t have enough momentum, leaving the songs a bit bland and sappy and making the listener go “wait a minute, aren’t they from England?” By the time the somewhat relevant closer “So Long Soho” arrives, it’s almost too late. However, if one can look beyond the authenticity issue, Road Movies is an enjoyable listen, especially on the more up-beat songs such as the rocking “Retrospect” and “Visible From Space,” and when Minibar does acknowledge its transplant status and infatuation with America, as on the winning title track, they truly shine. As a debut, Road Movies is a good start that displays plenty of promise; the trick is just finding sincerity in their imagery. Fortunately, the band would soon learn to reconcile their ambitions with their conditions by their next release, fully developing their original sound.

3/5

“Will you be my restoration? / Will you be my decline and fall? / Will you be my own road movie? / All the roads at home are too small”

S. McSmoke-Smoke