SHRINKING MINDS

Straight-up garage-rock from Liverpool’s Shrinking Minds, ‘Fun’ is a 2 and a half minute belter indebted to rock’n’roll and grunge from a sweatier, dirtier time. With so much clean and tasteful alt-pop filling up the medium de jour for emerging artists  (i.e. the tastemaker blogosphere), it’s nice to hear something a little more rough around the edges coming through. Both the track’s production and video have a glaze of homemade imperfection washing over them, meaning that Shrinking Minds strip back the layers of removal one can often feel when hearing artists for the first time. You can imagine not only seeing these guys tear up a tiny pub venue, but also come and join you for a pint afterwards.

With the forthcoming Martin Scorsese ‘Vinyl’ TV series about to land, the next big offering from television behemoths HBO, there are great parallels that can be drawn between that golden age of US punk (The Ramones, New York Dolls, The Stooges, CBGBs etc…) and what’s happening now, as legions of gritty and loud groups begin making waves in the UK. VANT were widely tipped across the board last year to make great stides in 2016, and others like Get Inuit are also bringing their fuzzy guitar rawk into attention.

Shrinking Minds can fall into this group, with their simple yet compelling song structures and monster guitar tones- not to mention the killer refrain to this tune we should all be singing along to: “Go faster! Ignore Me! I’m so alive, and it’s boring!”.

Words by Lewis Lloyd-Kinnings

Tipped by Simon Pursehouse from Sentric Music