The Minutes - Live Well, Change Often Album Review

Dublin trio, The Minutes return with their second album “Live Well, Change Often”. The three

members, Mark Austin, Tom Cosgrave and Shane Kinsella travelled to Fader Sound Studio in

Vancouver to record this album with noted producer Garth Richardson. Richardson has produced

albums for some of the heavyweights of rock (and Nickelback). The Minutes are hoping to join

those ranks and with the amount of noise these guys make on this album, it would be easy to

forget that there are only 3 of them in the band so it looks like that trip to Canada has paid off.

The band are best known for their high energy, balls to the wall live performances. A statement to

which anybody who has seen them live can attest to. This is replicated on the album opener and

current single “Hold Your Hand”. It is a song that is heavy enough for rock fans but has the small

amount pop which has garnered it copious amounts of airplay across several different radio

stations throughout the country. This is also true of “Cherry Bomb”. Mark Austin sings this song in

a way that a listener unfamiliar to the band would be forgiven for assuming it was being sung by

Alison Goldfrapp.

“Holy Roman Empire” features guitars so loud that they go all the way up to eleven. The music on

this track is very reminiscent of the great Thin Lizzy, unfortunately the vocals don’t live up to the

same standard.

“Lo And Behold” is the complete antithesis of the previous song. The vocals are superb and the

music more sombre and deep with the added strings which results in a beautifully balanced song

that might easily be the best on the album.

Is this album good? Yes. Is this album as good as their previous album “Marcata”? Not quite.

Standout Tracks: Hold Your Hand, Holy Roman Empire (minus the vocals) & Lo And Behold.

By: Dave McMahon

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