I will start with a disclaimer. Just writing about Merwulf’s recent single, “The Mountain Lion”, pushed me to the limit when it came to succinctly explaining their eclectic, adventurous, experimental, and slightly avant-garde approach to music making. Now faced with a full album, this review can only be the edited highlights, so bear in mind, this write-up represents the tip of a flippin’ big, sonic iceberg.
In fact, opener “NT2BC” and its blend of window-rattling, garage-rock bass grooves and buoyant synth hooks explain their skill at making the most unexpected melodic, magical, and slightly mad music better than I ever could do with mere language.
“Gulf of America” is clearly a side swipe at the brainwashing acceptance by the faithful of recent American foreign policy, again a strange and satisfying mix of gnarly rock and musak-infused flutes, and “Francois” is such a brilliantly bonkers mix of spoken word and on-hold music that I’m just going to suggest you listen to it and make your own mind up…I’ve run out of suitable words…and when that happens, it is a sign that a band is obviously doing something rather special.
“Genetic” shuffles along in its own state of blissed-out ambient grace, “Strike Gold” sounds like a song that the B-52’s thought that even they wouldn’t be able to pull off, and “Want the Laugh” feels like the sound of half-speed linedance at a Cowboy bar on Alpha Centauri. Okay, I’m done!
I know it’s my job to translate music into words, to sell a record to potential audiences through deft description, but I think I have met my match. All I will say is that In the Golden Age sounds like little you will have heard. I’ve said this before, but this time I mean it. I really, really, mean it.
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