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Have Mercy

Make The Best Of It

Written by: PP on 29/10/2017 19:02:19

Three albums down, Have Mercy sound less like a channel for Brian Swindle to pour out his emotions through honest, heartfelt lines than they do an actual rock band with ambitions for something bigger than just the emo crowd. Although "Make The Best Of It" makes only minor adjustments stylistically to their indie-flavored, depth-laden alternative rock/emo expression, it does sound a hell of a lot more polished and bigger than its predecessors.

As a result, the emotional charge feels a little less intense than in the past. There are fewer lines to cling to your memory like the ones from "The Earth Pushed Back". Vocalist Swindle's vocal strain is less on display because the production has all but ironed it out. Sure, it's a little scratchy and still crackles on occasion into the gravelly territory, but the album's highlight track "Reaper" illustrates perfectly the cleaner and more refined style the band as a whole is shifting towards. Call it maturity if you will, but it does have the unfortunate effect of saturating Have Mercy's sound. In the past, the emotional connect between Swindle and the subject of his lyricism was palpable; now it's just an afterthought where the band has become more easily accessible to the masses.

Does that make "Make The Best Of It" a bad album? Not necessarily. It just means that the unique draw this band had in the past is no longer there. Now they just sound like most other emo bands do on their third or fourth albums. They have a sound that's characteristic to them, but one that's easily comparable to The Dangerous Summer, Balance aND Composure, The Jealous Sound, and others like them. I'm almost tempted to define it as Have Mercy on autopilot, a trait that didn't exist before this album.

Download: Smoke And Lace, Reaper, Disagree, Drive
For the fans of: The Dangerous Summer, Balance & Composure, The Jealous Sound
Listen: Facebook

Release date 21.04.2017
Hopeless Records