Midnight Mines

***Long-running UK DIY band surface from their regular output of obscure self-released cassettes and backroom performances in their local neighbourhood bars, with this, their third ‘proper’ longplaying record, the culmination of a ‘rock’n’roll trilogy’ that perhaps only exists in their own typewritten manifestos. Augmenting the usual duo of Private Sorrow and Baron Saturday are new additions: State Education on bass, clarinet and pedal steel; and Autodrome on drums. Together they navigate Studio One rhythms, obvious rockabilly riffs repeated metronomically to the point of oblivion, 60s psych covers, chopped up tapes of previous bands, improvised chaos, and even tender ballads. A raw quartet screaming and begging to be let out of the walls of their self-imposed r’n’r prison.

“For the third and final LP of the ‘Rock & Roll Trilogy’, Midnight Mines have heralded a Spitfire parade across the skies above their street level hacienda, the shimmering roar reverberating a gleeful din, sending tremors of bewildering euphoria into the enthusiastic gaggle of lugholes below. The winsome cover of Red Krayola’s ‘Victory Garden’ alone sounds like Spacemen 3 trapped inside a Fun House mirror. Midnight Mines deliver their most fantastic blurt yet.”—Tom Lax, Siltbreeze