Mink’s Miracle Medicine - Thumbs Up Angel (2020)

West Virginia-based duo Mink’s Miracle Medicine (Melissa Wright and Daniel Zezeski, who share vocal duties) describe themselves as ‘Americana’, but the urgent album opener, and recent single, ‘At The Fair,’ recalls the rushing, jangly guitar pop of vintage New Order. The shuffling ‘Earning My Reckoning’, which has a wonderfully sad organ sound running through it, has the feel of Luna, the band Dean Wareham formed after the demise of his lo-fi, indie alt-rockers Galaxie 500. Zezeski’s singing style apes Wareham’s.

‘Beautiful Losers’ is a stripped-back, delicate and melancholy acoustic ballad, with more of that sad organ, but things get much more country on the fiddle-fuelled hoedown of ‘Proper Cinderella’ and the moody, back porch Southern folk of ‘Spots on the Sun.’ Funnily enough, Mink’s Miracle Medicine sound much more interesting and convincing when they’re doing indie-pop rather than Americana.

This album was recorded before the outbreak of the pandemic – Wright and Zezeski spent the summer in their cabin in the woods of West Virginia, wondering whether the record had a valid place in the current landscape.

It’s not going to be remembered as an earth-shattering collection of songs, but, in these troubled times, it’s a pleasant enough listen – melodic, unchallenging, country-tinged alt-pop/ rock. It gets a thumbs-up rather than a thumbs-down.