Merch
Crash, Boom, Bash
(Self-released; 2007)

In a town up to its ears in “indie rock,” Merch – the project of Joe Medina and “whatever musicians happen to be playing with him at any given time” – has distinguished itself by making the cello a core instrument. Medina even calls the sound “cello-rock,” a term connoting hard rock riffage gone classical (not classy). This fact may cause suspicion about Merch’s status as a novelty act, but on Crash, Boom, Bash they defend against such a charge with the simple irony of being “indie” cello rock.

In other words, Merch sounds a bit disheveled and atonal. The riffage is occasionally here, but it’s more bizarre than kick-ass in any Led Zeppelin-esque sense. With some exceptions, the cello works more like an organizing principle than an aesthetic spearhead. Tracks like “Sorcerer’s Lament” and “Short Stint” gain their thrust from short, repeating cello phrases; but the baritone timbre eventually fades into a din of guitars, banjos, drums, keyboards, bells, and fiddles churning beneath Medina’s distressed vocals.

For all the diverse instrumentation on Crash, Boom, Bash, one would hope for a more dynamic sound. Given its repetitious melodies and song structures, the album needs the spice of a rich sonic palette. Sometimes Medina’s arrangements heed this necessity. But the album has two antithetical characters: One is brash, opaque and anxious; the other is spare and wandering. With the former, a grungy flatness prevails, in part perpetrated by the grating electric guitars. With the latter, Medina’s songwriting has a clearer atmosphere in which to shine.

“Long Steel Rail” succeeds by virtue of the guitar’s absence. The song’s nakedness translates to intimacy, as a girlish voice sounds a folksy tale about a life of hopping trains. Cello provides the sole accompaniment. “Kindergarten” works according to a similar premise: A limber melody, acoustic guitar, tinkling bells and some harmonica. “No Author” is a love song that shambles through a landscape of lush acoustic guitars, cello, fiddle, floor stomps, claps, tambourine and what sounds like closing doors. The result is an articulate loneliness, akin to the atmosphere of an abandoned house with all its furnishings and pictures untouched after years.  Medina captures the hollow feeling of an abandoned love perfectly in this line: “I have a short story but I don’t know the author.” Indeed, sometimes one’s own story looks like a stranger’s.

Unfortunately this kind of keen vision is too much lacking. One senses the theory on Crash, Boom, Bash, in part, was to push hard enough against the tenets of musicality (i.e., melody, musicianship, being in tune) that, like the Velvet Underground did 40 years ago, the songs would emerge in a unique sonic space, as authentic documents of an artistic counter culture. But this smacks of parody. Simple acts of transgression qualify no more as “artistic” than conceptual strategies do. Most bands far enough from L.A. and Nashville strive to sound artsy and think they are making art. That said Crash, Boom, Bash is hardly derivative of any current sound, and its influences are subtle and diverse. Merch’s best moments are unencumbered by the confusion of strangeness and beauty, parody and truth. They just don’t come often enough.

[Nathan Ladd]

[STREAM] Merch: Various Tracks