A Cornucopia: Minerva
Big Stir, 2024
9/10
Listen to A Cornucopia: Minerva
The Manchester, England garage-psych outfit The Speed Of Sound bring us plenty of diversity among these 14 energetic and ambitious tracks.
The scrappy and harmonic “West Wind” starts the listen with John Armstrong and Ann-Marie Crowley trading off vocals amid plenty of bright melodies, and “SS-100-X” follows with some retro-folk ideas via John Broadhurst’s agile drums and the loose climate.
Moving towards the middle, the rugged yet harmonic “Half Life” makes great use of Kevin Roache’s well timed bass, while “The Great Acceleration” swirls with a hazy quality that’s a little darker in scope, but no less interesting.
Closer to the end, the bouncy and infectious “Clickbait” comes with both grit and tunefulness alongside the punk spirit, and “Question Time” exits with a swift and textured version of nostalgic rock ideas that benefits from a punchy rhythm section, fast guitars and a sing-along quality that’s instantly memorable.
A sonically varied outing, each track present comes with its own unique identity, where horns, balladry and grooves aren’t off limits. The CD and vinyl versions even come with 2 full length bonus albums of ‘60s nods, punk/New Wave tendencies and fantastic songwriting- not that you’d need anymore reasons to pick this up.
Travels well with: The Armoires- Octoberland; The Cyrkle- Revival