Minnesota Hotel
4 Alarm Records
In recent years, the practice of merging the introspection commonly associated with indie rock and the powerful hooks of punk has been gaining popularity. The resulting genre of music has come to be known as emo. The Pinehurst Kids is an emo band.
Minnesota Hotel presents itself as a minimalistic slice of melancholy. The tunes on the album tend to be low-key numbers featuring consistently personal lyrics. These songs showcase a band that is bent on exploring the depressed side of the human character. Exceptional occasions that find the Pinehurst Kids playing in a significantly subdued manner include "Johnny Mercer" and "The Birds."
However toned-down most of the album is, the Pinehurst Kids is unwilling to give up the idea of rocking out completely. The primary difference between these cuts and those played by more straight-up rock-and-roll bands is that the Pinehurst Kids do not seem to be able to write a song that is not deeply tinged with a feeling of sorrow. The tunes that find the group experiencing the greatest degree of success in the realm of the rock band include the opener "Switch" and the relentlessly driving "Brick."
Minnesota Hotel finds itself regularly being reminiscent of the depressed alterna-rock bands of the early '90s--the Lemonheads consistently come to mind. At times, the Pinehurst Kids is caught being overly derivative. While this impedes the band from making a case for its sound based on artistic merits, it doesn't keep it from succeeding in performing entertaining music.
After listening to Minnesota Hotel, the listener may find themselves feeling intensely dejected. Sometimes, though, that's exactly what's desired.
--Brian Gettler