It took maybe ten seconds for New York’s the Mercury Seed to
\nremind me of about six bands. The Allman Brothers, Cream, Counting
\nCrows, Whiskeytown, early-’70s Rolling Stones and, more than
\nanyone, the Black Crowes. Yep, this is good old-fashioned
\nlung-straining, head-bobbing, blues-based,
\njangly-melodies-and-big-greasy-guitar-solos late-night-bar-band
\nrock and roll.<\/p>\n
The Mercury Seed — who seem to have parked themselves musically
\nin about 1973 — obviously aren’t slaves to fashion, and that’s the
\nbeauty of this effort; it’s music that doesn’t even try to strike a
\npose. Instead, the band keeps it raw and real, and what comes
\nthrough is what any label should look for in any artist — passion.
\nThese guys — Volker Lemmer (vocals), Darren Salmieri (guitars),
\nJohn Jackson (guitars), Gary D’Andrea (bass) and Rob Langer (drums)
\n— love what they do, and believe in these songs 110%.<\/p>\n
Highlights include the restrained power of the steady-building
\n“Last Trace” (where the addition of piano gives it a distinct Band\/<\/p>\n
Big Pink<\/i> feel), the “Tumbling Dice”-ish country-rock of “Two
\nSteps (From The Move),” the chunky Aerosmith-esque boogie-thump of
\n“Coming Down Again,” and the swirling, Cream-y closer “Times Of
\nTrouble.” The production is clean but organic, with an immediacy to
\nit that puts you right in the room with the band. The fadeout-free
\n“live” sound is so pervasive on this disc that, after listening to
\nthe Mercury Seed throw themselves into ten meaty tracks here, it’s
\neasy to believe they must be holy terrors on stage.<\/p>\n
An interesting side note: the packaging on
\nDust<\/i> is more professional than many indie bands manage to
\npull off; if not for the fine print, you might think this disc came
\nout on Columbia Records or some such. Unlike a lot of musicians who
\nmoonlight as designer\/photographers, Volker Lemmer appears to have
\na good eye for art direction. (But, please, drop the pretentious,
\neditor-annoying period from the name\u2026 you guys have too much
\ntalent for that.)<\/p>\n
This sophomore independent release showed me dynamic
\narrangements, strong compositions, excellent musical chemistry, and
\nmost of all, total commitment by the band to these songs. Whatever
\nthe Mercury Seed achieves this year will be a direct result of the
\npalpable passion they’ve poured into
\nDust<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6985],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37874","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-mercury-seed","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37874"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}