{"id":7906,"date":"2009-04-22T22:11:27","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T22:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/?p=7906"},"modified":"2009-06-29T16:23:55","modified_gmt":"2009-06-29T16:23:55","slug":"fire-up-those-lava-lamps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/fire-up-those-lava-lamps\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Up Those Lava Lamps"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John Madera.<\/p>\n

\"miniaturetigers\"<\/div>\n

Miniature Tigers, Tell It to the Volcano<\/i>, Modern Art<\/a> 2009<\/p>\n

Hearing the palm-muted guitar chugging along on Miniature Tigers<\/a>‘ Tell It to the Volcano<\/i>‘s first track, I thought Stevie Nicks would burst out singing \u201cJust like the white-winged dove, sings a song, sounds like she’s singing: whoo, whoo, whoo.”<\/i> Instead, we hear Charlie Brand<\/a> singing, \u201cThis is not a test, or an S.O.S. \/ I’m no longer on a quest to get girls undressed \/ I searched through their hearts and their treasure I’ve found \/ I’m so lucky that this one lets dogs hang around.”<\/I> Then the band kicks in with the buoyancy of \u201cOb-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,”<\/i> and after the singer declares his love for his ‘Cannibal Queen,’<\/a> Darren Robinson<\/a> squeezes a guitar solo like so many sour tangerines.<\/p>\n

\"miniaturetigers2\"<\/div>\n

On their first-full length, the Miniature Tigers pay homage to their heroes in what unfortunately sounds like souped-up demos. Tell It to the Volcano<\/i> itself is like a lost sketch from The Kinks<\/b>. I can almost hear Ray Davies<\/b>‘ sardonic whine all over this tune. On ‘Hot Venom,’ some kind of cartoonish calliope, or something from an old Atari game like Breakout<\/i>, rings throughout. A Casio-keyboard patch provides the clave beat on ‘Tchaikovsky & Solitude.’ On ‘The Wolf,’ the Miniature Tigers’ lips are flaming to the beat of Queen<\/b>‘s ‘We Will Rock You.’ The Beatles<\/b>-esque ‘Giraffe’ breaks apart into grunge madness and static. And their homage to ‘Annie Oakley’ has the requisite hand-claps to lift up another average pop track. ‘Haunted Pyramid,’ perhaps the album’s strongest song, breaks form to give us some creepiness compliments of a plodding bass drum, mournful clarinet, and some barber-shop crooning. But with ‘Last Night’s Fake Blood,’ once again, as the song itself says, there is nothing new to report.<\/p>\n

The songs on Tell It to the Volcano<\/i> zip along like those pastel-colored dots that you tore off of strips of paper at the amusement park. This Phoenix, Arizona band rubs shoulders with nerd rockers like They Might Be Giants<\/b>, Ben Folds Five<\/b>, Weezer<\/b>. The Crash Test Dummies<\/b> even. Remember them? And I wonder, after an initial listen, whether, like those novelty rockers, we’ll remember Miniature Tigers.<\/p>\n

\"johnmadera\"<\/div>\n

ABOUT THE REVIEWER<\/B>
\nJohn Madera<\/b> lives in New York City. His work has appeared in 3:AM Magazine<\/em>, elimae<\/em>, Bookslut<\/em>, The Quarterly Conversation<\/em>, New Pages<\/em>, and forthcoming in The Diagram<\/em>. You may find him at hitherandthithering waters<\/a>, editing The Chapbook Review<\/em><\/a>, and singing and playing guitar in Mother Flux<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"mintigers3\"On their first-full length, the Miniature Tigers pay homage to their heroes in what unfortunately sounds like souped-up demos. Tell It to the Volcano<\/i> itself is like a lost sketch from The Kinks. I can almost hear Ray Davies’ sardonic whine all over this tune. On \u2018Hot Venom,’ some kind of cartoonish calliope, or something from an old Atari game like Breakout, rings throughout. A Casio-keyboard patch provides the clave beat on \u2018Tchaikovsky & Solitude.’ On \u2018The Wolf,’ the Miniature Tigers’ lips are flaming to the beat of Queen’s \u2018We Will Rock You.’ The Beatles-esque \u2018Giraffe’ breaks apart into grunge madness and static. And their homage to \u2018Annie Oakley’ has the requisite hand-claps to lift up another average pop track.<\/p>\n

By John Madera<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}