'Minds' is wasted with CD

Melissa Auf der Maur, "Out of Our Minds" (Roadrunner)A great bassist does not a great album make. Melissa Auf der Maur's long-awaited second solo album "Out of Our Minds" is a dark and stormy, Viking-themed melodic tornado, complete with an epic mess in its wake.While "Out of Our Minds" is her first album in nearly six years, Auf der Maur just as well could have been gone a century. Many aspects of the record seem unapologetically dated. From the nautical theme to the languid and exhausting pacing of all 12 tracks, this album seems to be a relic of the late 1990s Hot Topic School of Rock.The thematic and stylistic choices on "Out of Our Minds" make it painful to listen to at times. "Isis Speaks" is an exhausting six minutes of sustained warbling falsettos, emotionless whelps on top of tsunami-scale power chords. "1000 Years" may as well be a millennium old, sung as if Auf der Maur were the wood figurehead on the front of the Viking ship.Auf der Maur's instrumentation is this album's savior. Having cut her teeth with bands Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins, the record's echoing violent guitars and thundering bass lines are masterful. Long instrumental tracks like "Lead Horse" are strong testaments to Auf der Maur's sonic prowess.Check this out: "Meet Me On the Dark Side" is the album's lifesaver, a well-executed example of concept rock. The track makes the record's Viking and ocean imagery palatable, as it makes sense with the lost-at-sea elements of love gone wrong.