Mitchell Museum have an album finished and simmering away (and sounding extremely good). By way of warming us up and also giving a home to some of the songs which became orphaned along the way, the band are giving away an EP, which you can download from their Bandcamp page.
Mitchell Museum first grabbed my attention with a couple of quirky demos which I heard on their MySpace page about a year and a half ago, and a couple of those have actually made in onto this EP. They’ve been given a bit more spit and polish since I first heard them, and that subtle shift is one of the reasons I think I didn’t quite grasp Mitchell Museum the first time around.
Put simply, I seemed to largely think of them as quite an experimental band, with somewhat of a pop edge, whereas in actual fact now I’d probably describe them as a pop band with a somewhat eccentric edge. That may sound like a silly distinction, and to a degree it is, but I think it left me expecting them to make some very weird music as they added to those early recordings. As it is they made a bunch of mental pop songs, and it took me a while to adjust to the confounding of my (entirely groundless) expectations.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself and end up reviewing an album which isn’t released yet, so I’ll try and stick to this EP for now. Basically this is a really good showcase for a band who absolutely bristle with energy and whose songs are playful and basically just stare at you from the stereo with manic grins on their faces. They are looking for a label to release their debut album and this EP should hopefully go a long way towards securing that deal.
From the Song, by Toad Archives. Visit Song, by Toad for more from Matthew.