Mineral - EndSerenading

Although this album was released in 1999, I think its importance necessitates this review. This was one of the albums that got me started listening to indie/emo etc. and I find it to be one of the defining albums of the genre. That being said, a lot of music fans don’t know about Mineral. Many fans have heard of The Gloria Record, which is the band that Chris Simpson and Jeremy Gomez formed after Mineral broke up, but they don’t know where those two got their chops. I can understand that fans would have had a tough time latching onto Mineral because they disappeared just as fast as they arrived on the scene. Mineral’s first album, the Power of Failing, came out in 1997, and their second and final album, EndSerenading was released posthumously in 1998.

The band broke up during the recording of EndSerenading. Chris Simpson was the lead singer of Mineral. Many fans blamed him and his ego for the breakup. “When we were writing the second Mineral record, we’d be working on ideas that were really different,” says Simpson. “Phrases would be thrown around like, ‘I just don’t think that’s Mineral.’ That’s when I realized that I wouldn’t be happy in the band in the long run.” Whatever the reason or who was to blame, the end result is an album that has shaped a lot of my musical tastes.

The first two tracks, “LoveLetterTypewriter” and “Palisade” are almost like one long song. The first starts out slowly with just guitar and vocals. “Summer, unfolded like a tapestry.” That is the beginning and as the final chord rings on track one, “Palisade” doesn’t stop to give it a second to breath taking over the melody into a bigger fuller electric track. This is when Mineral shows the emotional heights that were not only within the band’s capabilities, but nearly its calling card.

The album really is full of movements like a piece of classical music. I think it conforms structurally in the way that it opens the album soft and unassuming, presents rising action through the middle and then has a definite resolution. The opening is the first three songs. Then the rising action starts to set in with “Unfinished,” the fourth track on the album. I am not sure if the name of the song has anything to do with the breakup of the band, but this is a song that builds slowly into a tidal wave of emotion. It starts innocently enough with a calm guitar harmony, until the vocals come in. “I wish you could put your ear up to my heart and hear how much I love you.” Then the song rises to a fever pitch as the distorted guitars kick into overdrive. “I still dream of December, Dancing together with rings on our fingers. And the two shall become.” This is one of the pinnacle moments for the band. The guitars are gut wrenching. Simpson’s voice has a strength in its frailty, as if it could break at any second.

The heavier section of the album continues through the next three tracks. “ForIvadell” has guitar parts that just don’t seem to go together until they synch up for the chorus. “WakingToWinter” sounds a lot like some of the songs that would come later with The Gloria Record, except without any keyboards or layered sound construction. The end of this song is probably the closest this album gets to sounding like Mineral’s first album with the guitars blaring. “Aletter” probably has one of the better choruses on the album. “And I know that they will never shine, the way it did that day.”

The album finishes with a three-song resolution that also seems like a fitting goodbye. “SoundsLikeSunday” seems to loathe all the problems. “Time doesn’t always heal, it just breathes and swallows memories.” The end of the song is a harmony that would have sounded unbelievable onstage had the band ever toured the material. “How blessed we are, crying out, but we will laugh some day anyhow.” “&Serenading” continues the travel home. “When I was a boy I could hear, Symphonies in Seashells, So why am I so deaf by twenty-two, to the driving snow that drives me home to you.”

The resolution, the album and Mineral are completed as a band by “TheLastWordIsRejoice.” It seems like such a fitting close for the album. “How will I drink from that stream, how will my heart sing your praise, how will I lay down in green grass fields when my heart is so afraid to.”

There is almost a full chorus of moving parts singing the last word, which is, in fact, “Rejoice.”

(This article first appeared on RockDummy.com)

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