For a while a few years back, certain more AOR-inclined music publications and old-fart stations like VH1 seemed fixated on the idea of “rock family trees,” a degrees-of- separation exercise whereby esteemed scholars would illustrate how bands evolved out of other bands, and how various moonlighting members could tie one group to countless others. A handy but ultimately fairly dull subject, if anyone decided to apply it to today’s indie underground there would surely be few better candidates for exploration than Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer. In a couple of quick strokes, the Victoria, B.C. frontman can be linked to Blackout Beach and Swan Lake, branching out from there to Destroyer and Sunset Rubdown, from there to New Pornographers and Wolf Parade, to AC Newman, Neko Case and Handsome Furs… pretty soon you’ve got him connected tenuously to most of the musicians in Canada. However, every family has a less successful sibling- a Ringo for every John, Paul and George, if you will- and despite consistent critical acclaim over the last decade Mercer has somehow missed out on the cult hero status afforded to collaborators like Spencer Krug and Dan Bejar.
Hopefully Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph, Mercer’s fifth full-length with Frog Eyes and first for the Dead Oceans label, will go some way towards rectifying that. Here the band take every element typical of their music and hone it into a streamlined, super-efficient version of itself. Still present are the complex, multi-section arrangements, dense instrumentation and impenetrable, surreal lyrics; as is the front-man’s inimitable vocal style, and as anyone who has heard it even once will know, Carey Mercer’s voice is the real deal-breaker. In possession of an incredible range, he swoops between guttural growls and falsetto yelps in a similar way to that other famously “love it or hate it” singer, Bjork, utilising his pipes as an instrument in themselves. Mostly, Mercer recalls “crank prophets” like Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits, barking out threats and warnings, repeating phrases over and over until the words start to take on a new meaning. Occasionally, a tendency to scat and yodel brings to mind a gibbering, deranged Van Morrison, and the theatrical croon on display when Mercer decides to actually sing echoes the likes of David Bowie and Scott Walker.
All these references, especially in the space of the same song, may sound daunting, but the end result is car-crash compelling and fits perfectly within the overblown musical setting. Recorded mostly live-to-tape, Paul’s Tomb retains the balance of prog pomp and raw punk sensibility that the band captured so well on 2007’s Tears Of The Valedictorian, but offers more frequent respite from that album’s breakneck pace. Drummer Melanie Campbell flips effortlessly mid-song between thumping, martial stomp, punky rattle and stuttering, dub-tinged breakdowns. Occasionally, synths bubble up from the depths or a piano line drops in from nowhere, and every now and then new member Megan Boddy’s backing vocals act as a sweet counterpoint to the singer’s monstrous howl, but this is very much a guitar album, with Mercer and Ryan Beattie acting out their Hendrix fantasies or, more often, duelling it out like Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd or Neil Young and Danny Whitten. Previously, English teacher Mercer’s lyrics- a mixture of mythological references, violent imagery and abstract poetry- have been the defining feature of his music, but here it’s the interaction between players more in tune with each other than any of the band’s previous line-ups that takes centre-stage. Highlights are hard to pick, as the album works best as a complete body of work; individual songs suffer when taken out of their original context, but the nine-minute opener “A Flower In A Glove” is particularly powerful, and the reggae bounce of “Rebel Horns” and lilting instrumental “Lear, In The Park” are welcome surprises. “Styled By Dr. Roberts” stands out though, climaxing with a twin-guitar freak-out on a par with anything on Marquee Moon.
In interviews, Mercer has spoken of a desire to make a “liminal” album, something impossible to pin down or tie to a specific era, and he’s succeeded; Paul’s Tomb is as close to a “classic” rock record as we’ve come in a long time. Although the album is unlikely to win over too many doubters, existing fans will be happy to find the band at the top of their game, confident to the point of arrogance and all the better for it. A Triumph it is, and just maybe it will afford Carey Mercer the chance to escape from the shadows of his peers long enough to parade this particular band of friends and lovers deservedly in the spotlight.
