If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll have realised that I am more than rather keen on Mince. I love the way they are kind of post-punk but then again not, I positively adore the ‘on the ragged edge’ sound they have, and I rejoice at the joy you can hear and feel in their songs.
For those of you already on the Mince kick here’s what you need to know. Mince have done it again, this is an absolute belter. Nuff said, go listen immediately.
For those of you who don’t know the band, here’s something a little more informative. What Mince do is to mix it up; you might hear that post-punk sound mixed with garage rock or noise rock or something else. In the case of ‘All I Ever Wanted, Was To Be’ they’ve mixed a kind of deadpan early Cure sound with Indie, a hint of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and a touch of that 60s’ death song thing.
The argument I bet you’re forming in your head right now is that this doesn’t make them a post-punk band at all. Well, yes AND no. Yes, it’s not what you’d expect post-punk to sound like. But no, it’s exactly what you’d expect a band stretching that sound to a point just before the elastic band breaks to sound like, a band who are not afraid to mess with our expectations, rip them into shreds and dance gleefully on the torn shreds on the wet pavement. The other argument I’d like to offer is that music shouldn’t stand still, progress and change are undeniably good.
This song veers madly between dark bass driven post-punk and tear it up Indie, and somehow this suits the topic of the song. The band explain ‘”’All I Ever Wanted, Was To Be’ is inspired by the film ‘Red Dragon’ and the toxic side of ‘self-improvement’ culture. It explores a young man trying to shed his skin, to become something greater, a god maybe. Triumphant in faculty, failed by his pseudo-society”.
‘All I Ever Wanted, Was To Be’ is a hell of a song. Lyrically thought provoking, musically inventive and a bloody joy to listen to. Oh, and most importantly, you can do that stop start jerky post-punk dancing to it. In a phrase, bloody fantastic.
