Mercury Program - From the Vapor of Gasoline
(Tiger Style)
A lot of people like to compare the Mercury Program to June of '44. While I can see,
after the fact, why that comparison is made, they remind me more of Karate (specifically,
Karate's first and best record). In any case, no one is going to mistake the Mercury
Program for either of those bands. However, they are addressing the same question as those
bands: how can rock music still be interesting?
The answer: I don't know. By all reasoning it should not be, and should not have been for
quite some time. What the Mercury Program does, though, is add vibes. And I don't mean
grooves, because they already had that. I mean vibraphones. And it seems to work. Though the
vibes, thanks to Tortoise and company, seem to be ever-present these days in the post-dork
scene, they do sound cool and provide an interesting layer in the traditional guitars-and-drums
rock mix.
A good example is the track "The Sea is Here," where dripping reverb guitars and rolling toms
belie the obvious jazz influences, but the distorted licks provide the rock. The vocals are
hardly worth mentioning as they are so quiet and low in the mix as to be merely an accent.
Bracketing the two ends of the jazz-rock spectrum are--on the rock end--"Re-inventing a
Challenge for Machines" where ringing vibes are mixed into the pounding drums and distorted
guitar bursts, and--on the jazz end--"Every Particle of the Atmosphere," where two vibe
lines--one quick and one slow--snake around a pulsing bass line, all over the top of ticking
drums.
The nice thing about the Mercury Program is that they take the road less traveled by
jazz-loving rock and rollers. Instead of trying to match the icey-cold intellectualism of
modern jazz (and a lot of post-dorks), or blatantly aping what more inventive musicians have
done, they mostly play what can only be classified as rock, but liven up the proceedings by
referencing the jazz. Unlike other post-rockers, who are more post and less rock, the Mercury
Program have not forgotten that there are two parts the the classification.
Ultimately, From the Vapor of Gasoline is not quite up to par with their self-titled
debut (on Boxcar Records), which is a bit more intense, more urgent.
This is one of those albums which, though you can't really think of anything negative
about it, just doesn't grab you the way that all of your favorites do. If you know and
love the Mercury Program already, I say snatch this one up. If you have not heard them, but
have heard the buzz, then I say check out their first album.
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