There’s something deeply wrong with Mink Lungs, and it’s really hard to pin down. They’ve got a freaky ability to piece together seemingly incongruous pieces of psychedelia, pop, thudding rock and winsome indieness. But any album that starts with a song like “Black Balloon” — in which pitchless baritone male vocals evoke Mercury Rev’s most atonal lyrical moments — that then segues into the languorous, wah-drenched “Start From Scratch,” and then goes on to include numbers like the itchingly catchy “Awesome Pride” and the fuzzy rock-out of “Mrs. Lester” is certainly an album by a band that has some problems. Schizophrenic to the point of blissful enjoyment.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2003.