It’s been four years since Strength made Portland all hot and bothered with its self-released, sex-saturated debut, Going Strong. The album was a swanky collection of love jams with titles of the like of, “Burning up for Two,” and, “Press Up,” crooned by Bailey Winters and accompanied by John Zeigler on keys and Patrick Morris on guitar, bass, and drums, resulting in a synth-disco album that even Europeans would get down to. Needless to say, the trio’s sophomore release was a highly anticipated one.
The boys did not disappoint. Although the track titles are not so bluntly sexual on Strength’s second self-released full-length, Mind-Reader, the content is. “Let me rub you down with brandy, let me lay you in my bed,” Winters ardently offers in the funky, hip-gyrating tune, “Brandy.” Yes, please.
His seduction gets a little darker in, “Blood,” a minor chord driven groove about a weak, thirsty vampire who has his female victim cornered as he instructs her, “Now stand back close against the wall, my hands on you feel comfortable…This is blood that will soon be mine.”
The only unsatisfying element of this record is its length. The eight-track-long LP clocks in at a measly 24 minutes that has its listener begging for more. On your next album, boys, work on your stamina.
-Katrina Nattress