Mercy (studio album) by Trey Anastasio

From spigelwii 01/06/2024 19:24

For just one man and one guitar, mercy sure is surprisingly complicated. Sometimes this works; musical tapestries are precisely woven to great effect on the dark (and down) "hey stranger" and the wistful "blazing down the twisted wire," but a lot of the time the album seems to be a masterclass in obscuring nothing lyrics in progressions and musicality so complex that the entire package becomes completely impenetrable. This is a real bummer because this implies that there is some hidden depth to be mined, but take a listen to "roll like a river" or the title track and tell me there is deep poetry at work.

The songs here are never boring--a welcome twist applied to the acoustic singer/songwriter character--but Anastasio is sometimes better when he just lets his playing do the talking and doesn't worry so much about the lyrical content.