Starlight Mints
Change Remains (Barsuk Records)

There’s a chance that Starlight Mints is just too damn weird for mass consumption, and that’s really saying something in an era in which even those dong-dangling super freaks in Of Montreal can strike it rich by licensing their songs for T-Mobile commercials. Like Of Montreal, Starlight Mints has been a going concern since the ’90s, but the latter hasn’t developed more than a cult following despite its long history.

It’s probably only natural that, hailing from a state whose official song is the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??”, the Norman, Oklahoma–based group would have a quirky take on pop convention. There are hooks aplenty on Change Remains—just listen to the instantly contagious “Black Champagne”, which gives more than a passing nod to the Cure, or the effortlessly funk-tastic “Sesame (untie the wrath)” for ample evidence—but singer-guitarist Allan Vest and his cohorts seem to take great delight in surrounding their most accessible material with gleefully twisted sonics. Take “Gazeretti”, which bounces along to a dub-lite riddim highlighted by a distorted drum track; or “Zoomba”, which, with its levee-breaking beat and black-dog guitar riffs, sounds a little like Led Zeppelin might have if Jimmy Page had spent his youth ripping off the Elephant 6 catalogue instead of cadging riffs from Mississippi blues men.

A couple of the tracks on the album (which is the group’s fourth) are just plain odd, most notably the instrumental “Snorkel With a Turtle”, where something that sounds like a fried synthesizer emits a tone that swoops in and out of key for a disorienting underwater Doppler effect.

Not surprisingly, the most mind-twistingly fucked song on Change Remains is also among its catchiest. “40 Fingers” grafts music-hall horns to a righteously ’shroomed psychedelic-folk-cabaret tune that breaks down to an a cappella coda, ending the record on as weird a note as possible without sacrificing any of its pop appeal.

At this rate, Starlight Mints is only one Outback Steakhouse ad away from indie domination.

Download This: “Black Champagne”