Well, the Program is getting better. This ought to be cause for celebration no matter which of two categories you fall into. I'm referring, of course, to the divisive effect of last year's The Vapor of Gasoline and how it split people into opposing camps of a) hypester idolaters that overstepped their enthusiasm for the album into the sphere of gross exaggeration, and b) the backlash contingent that turned their collective nose up at the young, unproven band. If you hail from the former grouping you'll find your feelings well justified; if you weren't fully convinced last time around, All the Suits Began to Fall Off could, and should, do the trick.
Being from the culturally backward, asphyxiatingly humid peninsula that is our not-so-great state of Florida, I have a soft spot for anything out of America's Wang that doesn't outright blow. Making it out of there unsullied by the dense fog of suckitude that hangs over everything is a victory in and of itself. The general adversarial ambience is not unlike the dry-ice, death-angel mist effect from Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments, only Florida is much too humorless and unimaginative a place to host a pharaoh. Whether by divine decree or oversight, the suck managed to pass over this Gainsevillean quartet, and though that's a pretty low bar, the Mercury Program takes it as a mere starting point, vastly surpassing expectations.
People are sort of funny about their music. You've no doubt heard somebody lament, with corny solemnity, that the guitar/bass/drums paradigm that has served us so well for so long has finally utterly exhausted its potential-- the implication being that it's high time we abandon it. Stick around a while and you may hear the same person tear down a new group for relying on so-called "gimmicky" instrumentation. Only here, the unspoken, and perhaps accidental implication is that any rock musician that dares step outside the inviolate magic circle of guitar/bass/drums must be innovating for innovation's sake, and probably to compensate for some lack. Because, if you can't do it with the time-tested ingredients, maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all.
Right, like I said, people are funny about their music. The Mercury Program is just one of those groups that "rely" on non-traditional instrumentation. They incorporate vibraphone, and on this release, employ a fair number of Rhodes-ish keyboard parts as integral elements. Far from gimmicky, the vibe lines add a chilly, ethereal stratum to the layers of mutating guitar phrases and the tight rhythm section.
Since "vibraphone" is one of the first words you hear in a description of their sound, the effect of its presence is worth exploring. Rather than characterizing it as an added layer, it's more accurate to say that the vibraphone, by virtue of its timbre, actually illuminates the stratified nature of the music. Its coolly reverberant sound contrasts as sharply with the alternately raspy and silky guitar parts as it does with the foundation of bass and drums, appearing to exist both between and outside those sounds. A crisp separation of sound is the result, as well an appearance of space and distance in what might otherwise have been a much muddier mix. It's the auditory equivalent of taking all the objects in a cluttered room and boxing them into individual cubes of limpid glass. Apart from its beautiful melodic and harmonic role, the vibraphone performs this all-important function, at once complimenting the ensemble, and demarcating the other instruments both from itself and from each other.
But who are these guys? Well, for starters, they're multi-instrumentalists. Tom Reno, erstwhile sometimes-singer on previous releases, limits himself here to guitar, bass, and bells. Big brother Sander Travisano likewise holds down guitar and bass and makes occasional forays into drumming, while little brother Whit Travisano feels it on electric piano and the vibes. Dave Lebleu, principal drummer, is responsible for the busy-bee percussion that sounds sort of like a jazzier, more vocal take on DC-style drumming. The collective sound is very much groove-oriented at the bottom, but given to loopy, spinning guitar bits, and Philip Glass-ish melodic abstraction on the vibraphone and keyboard.
At half an hour, this five-song teaser packs quite a value. There are no weak tracks to be found, and the repeat appearance of producer Andy Baker (Japancakes, Macha, the Causey Way) does the band's intricacies justice. The guitar playing this time around is less aggressive, with virtually none of the satisfyingly dissonant chord bursts from Vapor. That's not to say it's better or worse, but simply that they've taken a different direction this time, where more often than not, the guitar and vibe parts don't play off each other so much as attempt to intertwine and form a sonic fabric. I'd like to see them bring back some of that caustic guitar playing, though; it provided a focal point amidst the wash of harmonic atmospherics. That, however, is just a matter of taste. The point: All the Suits Began to Fall Off indicates a bright and interesting future for the group. Go Florida.
