Band/Album You Should Know: Snowmine - Laminate Pet Animal

Is the side of its face laminated? Is that what the album means? Don't tell PETA, just to be safe

As much as I claim to hate Twitter it has brought me some good fortune so don't be fooled. I have won contests here and there, found some great things to do in this awesome new city I live in and I have found some amazing music. One such amazing band that I likely still would have never heard of otherwise is Snowmine. The fivesome out of Brooklyn has put together one of the best debut albums of recent memory, as well as one of my favorites for the year in Laminate Pet Animal.

The album opener "Beast in Air, Beast in Water" starts things off with some tribal beats and a lyrical flow reminiscent of some Grizzly Bear clone. Then, right about 3:30 mark of the song the tone changes and you get bombarded with this infectious pop hookhorus of 'Tell me that you came for me, cause I've been waiting for you...' and there's no saving you. Not that you'd want to be saved at this point but you're in this musical quicksand (a good quicksand tho, that you don't want to get out of). Back to tribalness....then back to infectious hookhorus....then finally their lovechild joins the party and both sides fight for custody....culminated by the infectious hookhorus. A sign of things to come.

Laminate Pet Animal was just getting started. I already mention Grizzly Bear who then meets some sort of concoction of a Vampire Weekend/Ra Ra Riot musical vibe with a splash of Beirut and you might be on the right track....on a couple of the songs. I hear a lot of complaints about bands putting out albums that sound very similar throughout. This is not the case with ...Animal, Snowmine must have been paying attention. There isn't much about this album that is repetitive, other than it's lack of repetitiveness. Did I just blow your mind?

Again, I will reiterate that this is a very well-done album, especiallyy for a debut. You can download a couple of other tracks not present on the album through their bandcamp site, http://snowmine.bandcamp.com/,

Check out "Let Me In" below for one of the best songs of 2011, especially under the indie pop umbrella.