Album Review: Miniature Tigers - Mia Pharaoh

Album Rating: B+

Up until the release of Mia Pharaoh, Brooklyn band Miniature Tigers career could best be defined as a "beautiful identity crisis."  The Miniature Tigers had crafted two superb albums, but they had also made two albums that were essentially polar opposites.  Tell It To The Volcano was the ultimate workout album: the album was filled with insanely catchy pop-punk songs, was around 30 minutes in length, and had just about every song possible (the love song, the break-up song, the "you're a whore!" song, etc.)  The bands next release Fortress was the ultimate stoner album: it combined the spaced out instrumentation of Deep Purple, The Moody Blues, and Deerhunter, the general weirdness of Iron Butterfly and the Peter Gabriel Genesis, and the quality of material of modern day giants such as Deerhunter and Animal Collective. With Tell It To The Volcano and Fortress the Miniature Tigers released two brilliant albums, but the band still did not know if they were a pop-punk treadmill band or a stoned out psychedelic band.  On Mia Pharaoh the band figures it out and the result is nothing short of spectacular.

Album Retrospective: Miniature Tigers - Fortress

Album Rating: B+

As soon as I heard the almost Hit The Lights esque opening lines of “Cannibal Queen” from the Miniature Tigers last album Tell It To The Volcano, I took a mental note not to get to attached to the band. While the album was superb and is probably the best treadmill album ever made, it was obvious to me that the band was going to sell out on their next record. I figured the only thing I would like about Fortress would be the cartoon boobs that grace the cover of the album. I thought Fortress would be splattered with Nickelback like lyricism and Hinder like musicianship. I thought the Miniature Tigers were going to be the biggest mainstream sellout we have seen in recent years. Fortress though is the complete opposite of being a sellout record and it is a vastly different record from Tell It To The Volcano. What do we have to thank for this? The power of drugs.

Album Retrospective: Miniature Tigers - Tell It To The Volcano

We know that our lives and the lives of the human beings around us are constantly changing. Over time economies change, technology changes, politics change and just about everything that can change changes drastically in a positive and negative way. One thing that seems to not change those is the apathy we human beings having towards working out. No matter how much the world around us changes and "progresses", it seems like working out will always be a bitch, and along with going to church will always just be something we say we are going to do but end up super sizing or fast food meals instead.