Merchant - Suzerain (2016) (New Full Album)

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• published: 28 Jun 2016
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Proffering massive roll over four extended tracks, drenching itself in an encompassing bleakness and grand-scale semi-psych sludge extremity, Merchant‘s Suzerain impresses with a sense of vision underlying that few debuts can claim. Merchant hails from Melbourne and they’re dishing out some serious dirt. It’s huge, sustaining, crusty riffs with throat shredding vocals from their bassist over serviceably slow-pounding drums. This album is ultra-heavy and fuzzed out, plodding along and scraping at the floor as it lurches forward. They at times make heavy use of repetition in the song structures, but the riffs are strong enough to carry it. The four songs on this offering, “Seed & Soil“, “Mourning Light“, “Suzerain“, and “Black Vein” are just monolithic movements of majorly massive proportions. Each one a life-threatening sonic exercise of bone crushingly dense content through and through. The perfect term for Merchant’s music would be along the lines of the “downtuned thunder from asunder” as they are just heaving with varied audio violence and extinction level event volatility. You will feel and come to know exactly what I’m saying when you have endured the twenty-plus minutes of the title track alone but man up and make it through this and holy diver, you’re a survivor. I say that because Merchant are the aural equivalence of the attempted murder of the listening masses but in a most wonderfully magnificent way. ‘Seed & Soil’ had me sold on Merchant within 10 seconds, straight a way I could tell from the filthy sludge tone and the riff that feels like it’s physically crushing you down that I was going to enjoy this album. At a decent 9 minutes it doesn’t get stale, but also has enough substance to satisfy, in the same way an appetizer satisfies you until the main course. At the end of the first track I was thoroughly impressed, I couldn’t possibly imagine it was just foreplay compared to what was about to come in ‘Mourning Light’. The eerie guitar clears the palate as the Japanese taiko style drumbeat builds it back up before the vocals and distortion come smashing through like the Kool-Aid Man. It’s slower, heavier, and has hints of psychedelics in a very Monster Magnet way. I’m particularly glad for the drumming getting the spotlight in sections of ‘Mourning Light’ and the title track, as its brilliance gets lost behind the wall of bass and distortion when the guitars come in. During the title track legendary acts such as YOB come to mind as the morose 20 minute tapestry unwinds. The pace transitions with harmony between fast and slow, riffs crush to earth as solos soar through skies, and as it progresses you feel although you’ve lived to see mountains crumble and stars fade. As it all winds down, you return to earth only to find you’re just past the halfway mark and this wonder still has 10 minutes left to blow your mind again, and it does just that. Merchant finish it off by breaking formula with a bit more speed, a bit less flow, and a face-melting stoner rock guitar solo to top it off. ‘Black Vein’ sounds like a death metal band covering The Sword, and I’m sure chiropractors everywhere will love the damage this song does to necks once you’re done headbanging. It’s different to the rest of the album but works as sensational capstone on this monolith of a release. ‘Suzerain’ isn’t just a great record, it’s a bar-raiser. Merchant are a snowball rolling down a mountain, picking up speed and size, and this album marks the point that snowball reaches a big enough size it’ll leave a destructive impact. Hopefully this band will only grow from here, because they obviously have the potential and know how to use it. 1. Seed & Soil - 0:00 2. Mourning Light - 8:50 3. Suzerain - 20:25 4. Black Vein - 40:37 Support Merchant by purchasing the album here ~ https://doommerchant.bandcamp.com/album/suzerain-2 http://www.snakecharmercoalition.bigcartel.com/product/merchant-suzerain https://www.facebook.com/DOOMMERCHANT