Minster Hill "Capturing Clouds in A Bottle"

Another long awaited return comes from musician Howard Herrick, who’s New Jersey band Minster Hill just released their sophomore album. The album really moves away from the pastoral XTC and Supertramp-like touch points into a more commercial pop sound. The opening track “Everything” is a glossy, yet melodic tune about a significant other who holds a grudge. For those missing the wry lyric and cool chord progressions, “Harder than Hard” will please fans of the debut, it actually reminds me a little of Bourgeois Tagg. Many songs are inspired by Howard’s experience on the west coast doing the My One and Only film soundtrack. “It’s Beyond Me” is a guitar filled rant about some one who fails to keep commitments and blows thing off. Similarly “Beg You Back” is full of strong guitar riffs with a strong vocal by Herrick. “Outerbody” and “Feeling Lonely” are fast moving rock and roll songs, however the lyrics seem to lend themselves more to ballads. And there are none here. “Help Me” is has a decent hook and goes through the story how he motivates himself to keep going on. So as I mentioned, fans of ringing guitar will find a lot to like, although many songs sounded too similar and tend to blend together. Thankfully, “Waiting For The Perfect Day” has some nice free form guitar breaks in a more psychedelic composition. For fans of adult oriented rock it’s definitely worth a listen.

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