Starlight Mints

Attempts to link the Starlight Mints with fellow nutty Oklahomans the Flaming Lips have, thankfully, failed, and so they've been able to carve out an equally interesting and distinctive path on their way to their fourth album. Change Remains is a fairly typical Starlight Mints album, in that the focus is on being eclectic and interesting. What has changed this time is that this is an incredibly driving record, pushed along by insistent beats and synths that sound more comfortable beside the band's brass section than their guitars. It also sits quite happily with the band's characteristic goofiness, providing them with the focus they lacked last time around. They still fall short of having enough ideas for an entire album, throwing in a couple of entertaining but hardly essential instrumentals that aren't the best bookends for a record that gets it right more often than not. And when it does get it right, it is an awful lot of fun, even if the aural sugar high doesn't last nearly long enough.