Post Description

Op Verzoek.

On their latest LP, Totale Nite-- which arrives via Night People, a go-to outlet for acts that split the difference between spooky and psychedelic, including early efforts by Peaking Lights, Dirty Beaches, and Pocahaunted-- the band tighten up their blend of weirdo tones and emo conviction. Merchandise songs can skew long and most of the tracks on Totale Nite find the band stretching out. These aren’t noodle-heavy excursions, though. The songs are long for the same reason that Swans' songs are long-- they’re meant to envelope and overtake the listener through repetition.

The album’s best tune, “Anxiety’s Door”, flows along a programmed dance rhythm for upwards of seven minutes, swapping in swatches of acoustic and electric guitars between Cox’s plaintive hoots. The song is memorable, in part, because its arrangement is eerily familiar, an echo of the Smiths' “The Headmaster Ritual”, embellished with heaps of psychic jewelry. The title track is looser, weirder, and longer, with Cox competing against blaring saxophones and washes of white noise for sonic real estate. The shrill sounds and long duration (10-minutes) make the song a more demanding listen than “Anxiety's Door”, but it's also a more complete display of the band's weird chemistry. Merchandise's take on pop works with extremes-- tweaking out hardcore kids with fey vocals and ethereal audio gook and then blasting the tamer ears with hi-frequency screeching.

It's only when the tempos start to slow down, like on the ambient ballad "I'll Be Gone", that the LP drags a little. There are still plenty of places for Cox to hide in Merchandise's music-- delay swells, blasts of noise, bottomless reservoirs of reverb-- he just never takes the opportunity. However, when the music gears down, he could stand to step a little further into the background.

Though Merchandise’s music is sonically distant from the band's hardcore pedigree, it places a similar premium on the projection of honesty and unguarded emotions. On Totale Nite, they manage to use small-scale elements-- jangling guitars, cheapo drum machines, toy keyboards-- to project the urgency of bands with louder screams and bigger amps.


Verenigde Staten
Rock
Label: Night People


1. Who Are You? (02:54)
2. Anxiety's Door (06:51)
3. I'll Be Gone (06:35)
4. Totale Nite (09:19)
5. Winter's Dream (07:35)