Album Review: "The Wild Mercury" by Vandaveer

The Wild Mercury

It's interesting to think about how far we have come, not just as a people, or a nation, but as a species.

Humanity has existed for millions upon millions of years, albeit in very different forms.

It's interesting to think of how much humanity has seen, experienced, and sadly lost.

How popular are shows, books, and movies that discuss the idea of travelling back into the past, or just those set in the past.

We argue over the minutiae of what was right, what was wrong, and people acted back then.

Music used to be a thing people did to entertain themselves, their families, etc. Think back to watching A Christmas Carol, Fezzywig himself played the violin at his own Christmas party.

Music does not have to be a part of the machine.

Vandaveer

This album builds.

It's not uncommon to listen to bands that layer what they are doing...especially the ubiquitous death metal around these pages, but Vandaveer finds a new method of doing this.

The opening track is nearly acapella. The mournful tenor is then joined by harmonies, drums, acoustic guitars, and then we arrive to where the fun begins.

This album is folksy, country, and rootsy.

They have crossed all of those throwback bridges and then lateral the football to the modern times touches of synth, and back to the past with pedal steel guitar accents.

To attempt to pigeonhole this album into a single genre would be doing it a disservice.

The only way I could classify it is as music from another era.

No one could convince me that Vandaveer were seeking stardom and fame when they began playing together. Though, easily accessible to a wide range of people, this is not the music platinum records are made of.

The Wild Mercury is just too real and not plastic enough to achieve mainstream mania. It hurts too much.

It will move those who are lucky enough to hear it.

Release: 2/19/16
Genre: Americana?
Label: WhiteSpace Records
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