Stellar Album of 2014: After The End by Merchandise

Last year was a year where I tried to push myself musically. I needed to dust off the musician in me and explore the wider world of music than what was just playing on my stereo. To accomplish this I dove into the New Music Tuesday playlist on Spotify to see if anything moves me. Easily the largest gem to come out of these explorations is After The End by the Tampa band Merchandise:


With nice bass riffs, great guitar and synth parts and stellar vocals in my range (I am a bass after all), it has some of the best qualities of late 80's alt-rock. While I love every track on this masterpiece, I do have favorites.

Enemy

The acoustic guitar part that runs throughout is infectious and pairs well with the supporting bass line. I love the lyrics on this one.

True Monument

This song feels like this wonderful sweeping wall of sound that has this great resonant echoing quality with the vocals. The transition between this song and the following track is also pretty cool as it fades into an old time radio sound.

Green Lady

I would be remiss if I didn't call out this song as this was the one that popped up on New Music Tuesday. In contrast to the previous two songs this is a heavy heavy synth song with something sounding like a citar providing a nice accent. 

Hopefully I can go and see these guys this year but in the meantime here is a nice live performance of Enemy: