If you were up and around a TV set in Tampa on Tuesday, sometime after 10 a.m., you might have tripped into a surreal scene. On WFTS, Merchandise made an appearance on the local channel’s morning show, “Tampa Bay’s Morning Blend.” The disposition the show is supposed to render is sunny, cheerful, the perfect complement to a complete breakfast. The band was there to play a song from their new album *A Corpse Wired for Sound, *but not before an interview. When asked to describe Merchandise’s sound Carson Cox joked, “We play both kinds, we play country and western,” before getting at least slightly serious. “It sort of mutates all the time... When we started I feel like we were really snarly and aggressive. And now we’ve matured a lot.” Then they play, giving the early birds an unvarnished but romantic rendition of album highlight, “Lonesome Sound.” The performance is unencumbered and affecting, and runs in interesting contrast to the album version: a swaggering and distorted ballad. For those up at the hour, it must’ve been a strange scene. For Merchandise fans, it was a pleasantly confusing one as well.
The band for a long time has maintained a strict policy of home recording, though what they've conjured up in their last five records has never sounded grainy, but ambitiously wrought. *A Corpse Wired for Sound *signifies the first time Merchandise has stepped into a studio (in Rosà, Italy) to record an album, and the majority of the material was written after Cox left Tampa, living between New York and Berlin. His bandmate and writing partner Dave Vassalotti stayed in Florida, though he moved to Sarasota. Their face time was limited, and the professionalized air and transient process imbued something uncharacteristic to Merchandise. The album almost feels buttoned up.
Their sonic influences have widened, with dub especially playing into the band’s changing sound. Even though Cox has said in the past, “genres are not for us,” in their latest, the hair-sprayed guitars and general geniality paint them more as rock band than ever. The songs in A Corpse Wired for Song have gotten considerably shorter in length than previous albums (under five minutes for the most part), and they seem more spacious, or at the very least much louder, as if recorded with large rooms in mind. Yet, when you return to Tampa morning TV, a certain unifying thread runs from that unadorned live experience and the recorded one: a sentimental resonance. In the time between records, Cox and Vassalotti have gotten sweeter, softer, and better at writing straightforward love songs. “It wasn’t love/She was putting me on/I went further down,” Cox sings on “Lonesome Sound.”
By no means is their sixth studio album perfect. It's an uneven experience all together, but by and large Cox’s admittance of maturity rings through in this record. Even if the luxuriant guitars in a song like “Lonesome Sound,” are almost cheesy, it makes A Corpse Wired for Sound more anthemic. In a way, Merchandise’s uncoolness has always been what’s refreshing about them. This is present from the opening moments of the record, in “Flower of Sex,” where they give their eccentric approximation of stadium rock. If anything, the big room ambition comes off almost goofy and funky in construction and effect. Take for example the jaunty slinking synth chords that begin “Right Back to the Start.” Cox’s voice follows in like, pitch shifting and wiggling its way through the song’s surrealist lyrics (“My grandfather’s eyes flash against the wall/I stay up all night expecting his call”).
Corpse overcomes its moments, due in part to concision and earnest songwriting. This is true especially of the the penultimate track, “I Will Not Sleep Here,” filled with syrupy acoustic guitars, a splatter of electronic noise, and Cox’s near cracking voice guiding the song. Lines like “Blood is thicker than water/But both can go down the same drain” teeter on hokey, but they’re sold by virtue of how genuine the performance feels. Past the voluminous catalog of influences they say went into the writing of the record (the paintings of Anselm Kiefer, Burroughs’ cut-up-technique, etc), *A Corpse Wired for Sound *is their least obscured record. It contains a feeling of strange optimism, as if each song was written for closing credits, or sunsets on a horizon that need driving towards. Even if unintended, the embrace of normality that seemed evident in their television appearance earlier this week points to a band more comfortable in its own skin: happy to sing songs about love.
