The Mercury Tree - "Freeze in Phantom Form" Review

Artist/ Band: The Mercury Tree
Title: Freeze in Phantom Form
Label: Self release
Year of Release: 2012
Offical Artist/ Band Link

The Review:

Portland Oregon’s The Mercury Tree come up with another(their 3rd full length) highly melodic occasionally aggressive mixture of dreamy progressive, post, electro, ambient, perfectly balanced pop/rock. Right off the bat I was reminded of bands like Shearwater, Long Fin Killie, Wot Gorilla, Pale Saints (classic 4AD band), Glas Vegas, and Jars of Clay, but plenty of other extremely varied influences. Bits of psychedelic, folk, jazz, metal, blues, and alternative were all in there. This is simply a great set of songs!!!

With a wealth of hybrid styling, The Mercury Tree march on with strong and absolutely consistent set of compositions. I was not only highly impressed, but often blown away. Everything has plenty of muscle, music savvy, and keen minds for getting the song down to it’s most desirable form. A lot of harmony, a good deal of heavy crunch (even some grunge) and nostalgia from the 80's 4AD done with heavy leanings from the great quirky oddball and fantastic Long Fin Killie types. For a great example of this mix of so many styles, take a double listen to ‘In Partem Scalpere’ (track 10) which is 9 ½ minutes long. It’s so packed with styles that is hard to fathom. It even has a little Gentle Giant sound in it. It gets huge with some epic progressive rock fused in. This is a song to make the’ best of’ list. They end the recording with another fabulous cut.

The singing is great, the music is fantastic, and the band is ultimately out of this world. Plus the cover art has a super 3D effect. For me, this is a pinnacle collection of music from an ultra talented band. The Mercury Tree would have to be supreme on stage. I’d love seeing them live and hopefully I will. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Reviewed by Lee Henderson on March 13th, 2013

Tracks:

01. Anamnesis (2:05)

02. Frontera (5:47)

03. Avenues (6:03)

04. Sepulchre ( 4:42)

05. Cipher (6:10 )

06. Proteus ( 5:20)

07. Zeta (7:41)

08. Interspatial (2:26)

09. Inflexus (4:25)

10. In Partem Scalpere (9:31)

11. Rotating Cast (5:20)