Mercury Program
All the Suits Began to Fall Off EP
[Tiger Style]
Rating: 7.9
Well, the Program is getting better. This ought to be cause for celebration no
matter which of two categories you fall into. I'm referring, of course, to the
divisive effect of last year's The Vapor of Gasoline and how it split
people into opposing camps of a) hype-ster idolaters that overstepped their
enthusiasm for the album into the sphere of gross exaggeration, and b) the
backlash contingent that turned their collective nose up at the young, unproven
band. If you hail from the former grouping you'll find your feelings well
justified; if you weren't fully convinced last time around, All the Suits
Began to Fall Off could, and should, do the trick.
Being from the culturally backward, asphyxiatingly humid, penile peninsula
that is our not-so-great state of Florida, I have a soft spot for anything
Florida that doesn't outright blow. Making it out of there unsullied by the
dense fog of suckitude that hangs over everything is a victory in and of
itself. The general adversarial ambience is not unlike the dry-ice death-angel
mist effect from Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments, only Florida
is much too humorless and unimaginative a place to host a pharaoh. Whether by
divine decree or oversight, "Suck" managed to pass over the Gainsevillean
quartet, and though that's a pretty low bar, the Mercury Program takes it as
a mere starting point, vastly surpassing expectations.
People are sort of funny about their music. You've no doubt heard somebody
lament, with corny solemnity, that the guitar/bass/drums paradigm that has
served us so well for so long has finally utterly exhausted its potential--
the implication being that it's high time we abandon it. Stick around a while
and you may hear the same person tear down a new group for relying on so-called
"gimmicky" instrumentation. Only here, the unspoken, and perhaps accidental
implication is that any rock musician that dares step outside the inviolate
magic circle of guitar/bass/drums must be innovating for innovation's sake,
and probably to compensate for some lack. Because, if you can't do it with
the time-tested ingredients, maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all. Right.
Like I said, people are funny about their music. The Mercury Program is just
one of those groups that "rely" on non-traditional instrumentation. They
incorporate vibraphone, and on this release, a fair amount of Rhodes-style
keyboard parts into their mix as integral elements. Far from gimmicky, the
vibe lines add a chilly, ethereal stratum to the layers of mutating guitar
phrases and the tight rhythm section.
Since "vibraphone" is one of the first
words you hear in a description of their sound, the effect of its presence is
worth exploring. Rather than characterizing it as an added layer, it's more
accurate to say that the vibraphone, by virtue of its timbre, actually
illuminates the stratified nature of the music. Its coolly reverberant sound
contrasts as sharply with the alternately raspy and silky guitar parts as it
does with the foundation of bass and drums, appearing to exist both between
and outside those sounds. A crisp separation of sound is the result, as well
an appearance of space and distance in what might otherwise have been
a much muddier mix. It's the auditory equivalent of taking all the objects in
a cluttered room and boxing them into individual cubes of limpid glass. Apart
from its beautiful melodic and harmonic role, the vibraphone performs this
all-important function, at once complimenting the ensemble, and demarcating
the other instruments both from itself and from each other.
But who are these guys? Well, for starters, they're multi-instrumentalists.
Tom Reno, erstwhile sometimes-singer on previous releases, limits himself here
to guitar, bass, and bells. Big brother Sander Travisano likewise holds down
guitar and bass parts, making occasional forays into drumming, while little
brother Whit Travisano feels it on electric piano and the vibes. Dave Lebleu,
principal drummer, is responsible for the busy-bee percussion that sounds sort
of like a jazzier, more vocal take on D.C.-style drumming. The collective sound
is very much groove-oriented at the bottom, but given to loopy, spinning guitar
bits, and Philip Glassian melodic abstraction on the vibraphone and keyboard.
At half an hour, this five-song teaser packs a value-packed punch. There are
no weak tracks to be found, and the repeat appearance of producer Andy Baker
(Japancakes, Macha, the Causey Way) does the band's intricacies justice. The
guitar playing this time around is less aggressive, with virtually none of the
satisfyingly dissonant chord bursts from Vapor. That's not to say it's
better or worse, but simply that they've taken a different direction this time,
where, more often than not, the guitar and vibe parts don't play off
each other so much as attempt to intertwine and form a sonic fabric. I'd like
to see them bring back some of that caustic guitar playing, though; it provided
a focal point amidst the wash of harmonic atmospherics. That, however, is just
a matter of taste. The point: All the Suits Began to Fall Off indicates
a bright and interesting future for the group. Go Florida.
-Camilo Arturo Leslie