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Mercury Switch
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Time To Shine
Indianola Records
Release: 5/10/2005
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Rated:
Review by:
Matthew Nanes
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Note to the entire new slew of metal-core and hardcore bands
coming out lately. Give up. Seriously. Don't even try anymore.
Because Mercury Switch (from New Hampshire) has trumped
you at every angle you could possibly find. Brutal breakdowns?
Check. Originality? They have it in spades. Melody? Better than
you. Humor? Put your bandana away, please. Because you're
not ever going to get as good as Mercury Switch's second
full-length, Time To Shine.
Improving at every detail from their last album If You
Loved Me, You'll Take Me To The City, Mercury Switch
does not waste any time getting down to business on their first
song, "Valley of Vengeance." They bust into a brutal
breakdown ten seconds into the song, but it's anything but
typical. The call and answer of their two vocalists, the machine
gun drumming, the superb guitar riffage, intricate song
structures and the layers of keyboards make Mercury Switch
ahead of everyone in the hardcore game.
The finest Mercury Switch moments are when they're not being
a hardcore band. The punk stylings of "Altered Beast," which
features a near hilarious guitar squeal-off and backing vocals
that belong on a Bouncing Souls album make the song stick out
like a sore thumb, but that's where Mercury Switch excels.
They take unconventional ideas and make them
work.
Another unconventional move that pays off for Mercury Switch
is tracks seven through eleven, where each track is a
"movement" of one piece of music. It runs the gamut of genres
of hardcore, hair metal (check out vocals Def Leppard would be
jealous of on "The Devil's A Woman Tonight") and an acoustic
song, "Standing On The Edge of Reason," that amazingly fits
perfectly on the album. A band like Mercury Switch is what
hardcore needs today, a band not afraid to make mistakes and
a band that's willing to laugh at themselves if they should fail.
With Time To Shine, they come through with
flying colors and then some. Mercury Switch's creativity may
be overlooked and may be too daring for hardcore kids, but
five years down the road this will be a cult classic. |
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