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July 9, 2009 - It's easy for an established indie-rock band to get comfortable, but The Starlight Mints' members aren't content with just their durable and consistent hooks. The Oklahoma-based rock group excels at immaculately crafted songs, but also keeps a truckload of tinsel, chimes and other sparkly trimmings in tow at all times, designing entire houses of sound and then decorating them to the nines.

Now on its fourth full-length album, Change Remains, the quintet continues to build momentum. Bedecked with ornamental noise and fuzzy reverb, "Paralyzed" reveals more layers and complex twists with each exposure. It begins with thumping drums with a dusting of eerie tinges of synth-pop before easing into dreamily pitched vocals, rock beats and surreal combinations of sound effects. The lyrics unfold like a Tim Burton film, marveling at the "powers of the strange" and the enigmatic girl who struggles, "yet under the wheel she stays." "You're pretty and paralyzed," lead singer Allan Vest alternately laments and exults, teasing with falsetto and lingering on the song's mystery.

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