The title of Mendez’s latest disc seems to offer all the hints you’ll need about the music found within it: a touch of matter-of-fact sentimentality laced with a decent helping of mid-fi psychedelia.
While fuzzed-out guitars, distant ghost-pianos and reversed tape loops all shimmy into the spotlight, it’s Mendez’s understated, casually strummed acoustic guitar and Elliott Smith-style crooning that burrow their way under your skin and into memory.
A couple LSD-inspired faux pas notwithstanding — the closing track is titled, awkwardly, “These Clouds Are Made From Feelings” —Mendez nails the psych-folk delivery and, when things quiet down, some of his songs are devastating in their simplicity.
“Drinking Beers” is a great wintertime road song, the bass-framed “Fond Memories” recalls the acoustic mutterings of John Stuart Mill, and “Dropped My Shadow” is just begging to be ingested when you’re sleepless, alone at 3 a.m. and maybe a drink or two past your limit. – Punk Planet, March/April 2006
