Minus Story

Heaven and Hell (EP)
Jagjaguwar (2005)

Reviewed by Kate Guillemette

Minus Story was, I think, my favorite “new” band of 2004. Their first full length, The Captain Is Dead, Let the Drum Corpse Dance, is great, lush, complicated orchestral pop. This EP strikes me as less remarkable, perhaps because there are fewer tracks on which to change things up, and it just doesn’t feel altogether cohesive. There is “serious” guitar stroking on the title track, which I yawn over every listen; that song, and track 2, however, are a couple of years old and predate TCID,LtDCD (so, one may ask, why are they on this EP?). While on tour last year, Minus Story seems to have run off with Okkervil River’s keyboards, and vocalist Jordan Geiger now sings almost exclusively in his waltzing three-beats-at-a-breath barroom cadences on 4 out of the 5 listed tracks (most conspicuous on “Misery Is a Ship” [4]). “Hybrid Moments” (5) is a Misfits cover that prominently features toy piano and jingle bells and in general shows off all the elements of Minus Story’s sound that I liked so much on their first record. The “hidden track” (untitled #6) is a spoken ghost story with some ambient childrens’ noises/voices behind it and a couple of intentional and completely unnerving recording glitches/channel switches. It freaked me out, at home, alone, so be aware.

On TGB rating scale, Minus Story asks Venus for a girl for them to thrill.