Merit Maker is a band that occupies a middle ground. I don’t mean that they are in any way compromising; more that they don’t fully commit to any one genre or another, preferring to avoid the name game, duck out from obvious labels, and leave themselves free to skirt the fringes, the liminal zones between sounds and styles.
Sure, give them a push in one direction, and they become pop-punk; nudge them the other way, and they would fit into the alt-rock territory. The energized groove of punk proper and the melodic awareness of alt-pop are also not too far out of reach. But not doing so leaves them in a perfect place to indulge in a bit of everything, flavouring their songs without expectation or pressure from the listener.
There are full-on punk party pieces, such as “Around Again,” with its relentless, pummeling beats and driving basslines. There are more intricate riffs and considered melodies in “Two Steps Ahead,” a song that wanders between indie dynamics and rock and roll onslaughts. And then you have songs such as “Summer Days,” which take the bounce and buoyancy of pop-punk and push it towards the second part of the genre without losing any accessibility or infectiousness.
As the title suggests, whilst the band aims to put the “fun back into punk,” and musically this is an album that certainly adheres to the label, “heads-down-no-nonsense-mindless-boogie…music that throws caution to the wind and which is all about escapism and euphoria, Merit Maker still have plenty to say about the state of the world. After all, given such a platform, why would you not make your voice heard?
Its overall theme is simple. As a wise man once said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.” It’s just that when he said that, he didn’t have such a glorious soundtrack to help him dance his way toward those better times. Now, you do!
