Merchandise

Totale Nite EP

Night People

Street: 04.05

Merchandise = Morrissey + The Jesus and Mary Chain + Echo & the Bunnymen

This new EP is very much a companion piece to last year’s Children of Desire, and very much pushes Merchandise’s sonic palate further. “Anxiety’s Door” is an awesome rock n’ roll epic adventure that showcases Dave Vasalotti’s guitar skills. “I’ll Be Gone” actually merits the generic Morrissey tags thrown on Carson Cox—here they deliver a synth-punk ballad a la The Smiths’ “I Know It’s Over.” Title track “Totale Nite,” is a 10-minute hell raiser that twists and turns through all of the individual elements that composite Merchandise—shoegazing chords, charging punk rhythms, contemplative lyricism and thrashing walls of guitar noise, that build up and up and up towards an ending where Cox swaps his Moz mask for a Johnny Rotten bark. Keep up with Merchandise—they know how to take all the rewarding risks. –Christian Schultz