Magic Mint
Grand America
Self-Released
Street: 03.11
Magic Mint = Wavves + Kurt Vile

Upon realizing that Magic Mint is the product of a solo endeavor, I had to re-listen to every track before concluding that Andrew Shaw is something of a surf-psych rock factotum. Grand America is a brief, unassuming assemblage of shimmering guitar soundscapes (notably in “Happy Ever After” and “Enemies”) and twangy garage-crunch anthems speckled with obscured, fluttering vocals (“Jaded”) with the percussion being created by a drum machine. I’ve never been a big fan of drum machines—even in solo endeavors—but with Shaw, it’s forgivable because he crafts all other layers around them meticulously well. With just an EP, I can safely say that Shaw’s one-man talent is enough to rival the likes of other local bands among the surf-psych fold. –Gregory Gerulat