Have Mercy Make the Best of It Review

 This could very well be Have Mercy's last anthology. It'southward a shock that fifty-fifty this ended upwards seeing the light of twenty-four hours, really, given how 2016 saw three of the four members leaving, with the name now essentially being a stage name for vocalizer / guitarist Brian Swindle. At present flanked past a new team of producers and musicians, Make The Best Of It couldn't be a more plumbing fixtures name for this album, Take Mercy's third full-length riding on the current strength of emo to, at the very to the lowest degree, leave a legacy worth remembering.

 Thankfully, Swindle certainly has made the best of it, and then some. In what is already a banner twelvemonth for emo equally it is, Accept Mercy take managed to create another stellar album for list, all while standing on the knife-edge of existence itself. And really, this is an album that does everything it does exclusively through the basics; information technology's not every bit exposed as Sorority Dissonance or deeply introspective equally A Will Away, focusing on a specially messy aftermath of a human relationship, but doing so with a sense of conflict and frustration that's impossible to fake. Almost all of this is a case of this anthology'due south weight and atmosphere, and how Swindle's about-masterful control of both yields the maximum output. His slightly nasal vocals aren't really ideal for this sort of thing, but when he lets out his tense, impassioned growl, there'south the sort of heavy, heady nifty of emotion that belies this album perfectly. There's palpable grief on Coexist and American Bliss where Swindle'due south breakup sees him condign more and more wracked, while Reaper plays out the same revenge fantasy equally Make New'south Seventy Times seven, cut the brakes of her new partner's car as he drives abroad. The fact that such a clearly-divers comparison can be made shows the Swindle is bouncing off his influences pretty hard here, but it never dampens the emotional interplay, particularly on Reaper where his fundamental desires override any rational thought, and information technology makes for a startlingly open moment.

 A similar effect is achieved through the instrumentation, the sort of rich, earthy emo that'southward underpinned by shades of darkness that make information technology sound even thicker and more dense. Baby Thousand and Good Christian Man have the sort of strained rumble that Thrice did phenomenally on their final album, and the intense melancholy on Drive and Ghost is conveyed through their buried swathes of washed-out guitars. Even when the pace slightly picks upwardly on Begging For Bones with its choppier guitar line that actually is far removed from anything else on the album, the remarkable flow it develops all the way through keeps the whole thing grounded as a cohesive body of work, both sonically and thematically. And with the rough production style that lets every chord linger, Make The Best Of It manages to resonate in exactly the way that was intended.

 Ultimately, if this anthology does prove to be Have Mercy'due south swansong release, it'due south hard to see a improve note to get out on. The light and shade collide masterfully in an album that manages to be both unflinchingly personal and relatable, with Swindle's pained, almost uncomfortable purging serving as the ideal narration. The fact that it'southward equally lowkey as it is ways it probably won't become the attention it deserves – the buildup to this album has been virtually nonexistent, with Have Mercy being a cult act non helping much – only even among the waves of incredibly strong emo releases that have dropped in the by few months alone, Make The Best Of It still manages to shine out.

viii/10

For fans of: Existent Friends, The Unsafe Summer, Boston Manor
Words by Luke Nuttall

'Brand The Best Of It' past Take Mercy is out now on Hopeless Records.

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Source: https://thesoundboardreviews.com/2017/04/25/album-review-make-the-best-of-it-by-have-mercy/