Allure, the debut album from The Merci Buckets, is a challenge to normcore and the monotonous pursuit of Big Box Beauty.
Matt Carter
In this Ikea age of straight lines, rich colours, and perfectly plotted patterns, our expectations of what new entails have become drastically skewed by a fruitless quest for perfection. But is perfection a worthy quest when it comes to art and self expression? How can we express our individuality in meaningful ways knowing whatever we create will be gauged by a set of standards that, by design, seek to eliminate the qualities that make us unique? The answer is an easy one. Simply put, you rebel. You turn your back to what is expected, embrace deficiency, and firmly place your trust in yourself. After all, there is no point in using someone else’s voice to speak your own words.
The Merci Buckets debut album, Allure, is a challenge to normcore and the monotonous pursuit of Big Box Beauty. With limited overdubs, and even fewer takes recorded directly to tape, the band deliver ten electrifying performances bursting with raw energy and emotion that find common ground in some hybrid concoction of punk rock fury and indie rock diversity. Between songs about not fitting in, never getting ahead, and seeing the same thing day in and day out, guitarist/vocalist Travis Flynn, bassist Paul Hayes, and drummer Dawson Burnett expose lifes bleak realities while simultaneously offering us an unspoken solution.
For the Ikea minded, Allure may sound like an album fraught with imperfections. Peaking mics and occasional bleed bring the kind of dust and grime we have been conditioned to hear as flaws. But that’s entirely on us. That’s a judgment based solely on a privileged standard we have been taught to accept as a minimum. Allure is a fuck you to privledge, a fuck you to straight lines, and a fuck you to perfectly plotted patterns. And it just might be the reality check we all need. Life doesn’t come in a box. It only ends in one.
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