Much like Nicholas Cage “Could Eat a Peach for Hours”, I could Listen to The Bare Minimum's New EP, Uncaged, for Hours!
About two weeks ago, I reviewed one track off, National Treasure, off The Bare Minimum’s new Nicholas Cage inspired EP, and as promised, I’m back to review the rest of the EP and take a deeper dive into each cut.
For those that missed my first review and are too lazy to click the link above, The EP consists of 4 new songs based on iconic Nicolas Cage movies: National Treasure, Con Air, Bangkok Dangerous, and Leaving Las Vegas.
National Treasure brings that thrash punk sounds akin to Propagandhi (Yes, that’s not saying anything specific if I don’t say which album since their sound has changed a lot from album to album, so you’ll just have to listen to figure out which I mean). Let’s just say it’s got the speed and energy to make it a perfect skateboarding song and the melody to make it singable as well. It’s also got a bit of an 80’s metal feel to it particularly in the chorus when they go a little high to in the call and response chorus that reminds me a little of John Bush in Armored Saint. The videos for this one is just too fun to watch:
“Con Air” opens with a dope guitar lead over thrash punk guitar riffs, but then drops out the guitar for the verse where this sick bass line drives the song into the rad riffage of the catchy chorus. It follows this same pattern in a highly enjoyable way and then hits you in the face with the moment you’ve been waiting for an ending repeatedly demanding that you “Put the bunny back in the box”! God damn I love this shit! The video is on their FB page and on their Bandcamp page for the song and is definitely worth the watch.
They follow two of his popular movies with one of his least popular Bangkok Dangerous which veers more heavily into the trash metal than the two previous tracks. It’s got that super fast riffage over double bass drums and rapid fire bass that leads into big choruses all topped over with blazing guitar solos. The movie may have bombed, but the song is a hit for me, and once again the music video is crazy well done. After watching it a few times, I’m debating going back and rewatching the movie. I know I’ll go back and listen to the song. Like Con Air, the video isn’t on YouTube yet, so you’ll need to go to their Bandcamp page to watch it.
The final song is from the incredible Leaving Las Vegas which slows things down a bit giving it a more 80’s synthrock mixed with punk sound without losing any of the edge. It captures the essence of the movie perfectly, and includes both the despair and hopelessness that Cage’s character felt in the morning as well as the hinting at Shue’s character’s final acceptance to love him for who he was before he died. Video is on Bandcamp.
While I wish it were available on vinyl instead of cassette tape, the tape is fucking rad! It’s red candy colored and comes with a mini Declaration of Independence! Plus the A side are the four songs I reviewed while the B side is full of the unreleased demos based on Snake Eyes, Ghost Rider, Wicker Man, Mandy, and Drive Angry! I actually paid the $3 Canadian for the digital album thinking I’d get downloads of those songs too, but alas I’d have to buy the tape but I’m not Star-Lord, so I don’t have a Walkman.
Suffice it to say, this is how you do a release! You get amazing videos for each song, you stream some of the songs, and keep some of them special for your physical release, and of course, you have kick ass songs! Plus they even released a YouTube playlist, The Cage Files, to break down his movies for you!
You can stream their songs on Spotify or listen to the track I added on my punk playlist with other bangers!
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