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Mercy, Burden
Brothers (Kirtland)
CD Review 2.November.2006  [ David Lee Roth had a golden rule: If a recorded song didn’t sound good in a crappy car’s tape deck stereo, it went back to the drawing board. On Mercy, singer and songwriter Todd “Vaden” Lewis probably passes that test, as the skeleton of this album is the melodic hard rock of ’80s stream-rockers like Van Halen and Poison, but on a higher-fidelity system, the influences reach back only so far as the post-grunge boredom of bands like Three Doors Down. Where Todd’s previous pedigree in the Toadies took its influences and infused them with biting darkness and inventive axework, Mercy is shameless in the continued brightening and polishing of the Burden Brothers’ very basic philosophy: big, dumb rock. The band’s perfectly capable of whipping up a catchy rock song, and their emphasis on melody is certainly stronger than many of its hard rock peers on mainstream radio, but let’s not kid ourselves; the dime-a-dozen rock field can do without most of Mercy. The over-affected “I Am A Cancer,” loaded with studio trickery and a meathead bassline, sounds like every other band that ever tried to rip Soundgarden off back in 2001. Scarily, ballad “Life Between” sounds only a few piano notes away from that Fruit of the Loom commercial in which fruit perform a Ben Folds rip-off called “Blue”...BB single “Everybody Is Easy”’s similarities to The Hold Steady seem moot in comparison. That doesn’t make the record necessarily painful to listen to, but watered-down lyrics make the heard-‘em-before riffs much harder to swallow. “Good Night From Chicago,” the obvious committee choice for single, is a groaner within 20 seconds: “Did you get what you expected tonight? / Did you get disrespected tonight?” And as the plain ol’ 4-chord chorus riff blares, Lewis has the audacity to say, “I got no time for that adolescent shit you’re trying to sell.” No kiddin', Todd? Well, I’ve got no time for-- [A crashing sound can be heard from stage left. Sam, alarmed, puts his Joanna Newsom T-shirt and Peter & The Wolf pajama pants on and investigates.] Sam: Why is my bathroom door shut? And what is that screeching noise coming from in there? [Sam cautiously pushes the door open. There, in front of the mirror, is Burden Brothers lead singer Vaden Lewis, holding a smaller compact mirror in one hand and an eyeliner brush in the other as he sings the chorus to “Everybody is Easy.”] Vaden: Oh, hey, Sam. I needed to talk to you. Sam: What are you doing in my bathroom? Vaden: Oh, this? It’s nothing. Taz, get him! Sam: Huh? [Burden Brothers drummer Taz Bentley appears from the side of the stage, smashing Sam down with his immense size and performing a six-minute drum solo on his face. The lights fade, and after a few moments of darkness, Sam reappears, tied down to a chair in his bedroom; Taz stands behind him, while Vaden is a few feet away in sunglasses, a tight Urban Outfitters T-shirt and leather pants, sitting at Sam’s computer.] Sam: Jesus Christ! What the hell is this, Todd? Vaden: It’s Vaden now...Tase ‘im, Taz. [Taz applies a taser to Sam’s neck, then turns away and resumes his silent stance, arms crossed. Sam’s chair falls over, his body slumped upon the ground.] Sam: Ungh...what...why... 
Vaden: Quite a little review you’ve got here, chair-boy. “Big, dumb rock,” huh? Cute choice of phrase. Sam: Yeah, I heard a story that you once used that exact phrase to pitch a music video to a director. Is that true? Vaden: None of your business. What of it, anyway? Sam: Well, it’s kinda disappointing to think that your descent into mediocrity is something you recognize and even actively choose. [Vaden rests the heel of his 18-inch left boot on Sam’s forehead, but doesn’t put any weight down.] Vaden: I don’t know where you get off calling this “mediocrity.” I’ve been in bands for a long time. I’m reaffirming some of the biggest, best-selling rock records in my influences, rock bands of the ages, back when straight-out, no-bullshit rock music was cool. Rock, man. And look at Taz...he was in Reverend fucking Horton Heat! Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Sam: If I answer, will you crush my head? Vaden: No. Sam: Then no. [Vaden puts his weight on the heel and smushes Sam’s head like a burnt-out cigarette.] Vaden: You know, it’s pretty pathetic how you acted chummy with me, like when I gave you that exclusive Toadies reunion interview, or the time we invited you to the studio while we had our fan club help record gang vocals on “Goodnight From Chicago.” All smiles, and then there you went, blasting that Toadies reunion show, making fun of us in the Observer, giving Taz crap on a local talk radio show, and now this crap that you’re passing off as a review. Sam: Dude, Tod--er, Vaden, I’m sorry if talking about your band and giving it publicity in a small newspaper really hurt you, as I doubt it really did...but I’m sorry to report that I don’t exactly owe you anything here. [Vaden leans down to Sam’s body and lifts his sunglasses, revealing a thick, black caking around his eyes.] Vaden: You know, Sam, I gotta tell you...I don’t owe you anything, either. Sam: Huh? Vaden: I know about you. Your raging bone for the Toadies back in the ’90s. I saw you screaming along to “I Come From The Water” back at that New Year’s Eve show; I saw you post time and time again on the Toadies’ Web site about Hell Below / Stars Above; I saw you moshing at our big Liberty Lunch show... Sam: I wasn’t at the Libert-- Vaden: SILENCE! It doesn’t matter now. I was trying to figure out why you’d even bother bashing our band; it’s not news to anybody that you don’t like the Bros, man, just overkill. So I was sitting at the Lakewood Starbucks with Taz, eating a few chocolate grahams, when it occurred to me--you’re just a bitter little unemployed piss-ant who can’t get over the fact that I’m done with the Toadies. Sam: What? That’s not-- Vaden: I saw the end of your review here, the part marked “delete this later.” You called the song “On Our Own” “a serious exception and a rare moment of clarity on Mercy. With a ringing lead guitar line that Darrel Herbert would be proud of, a solid shout-along chorus and a tale of broken romance that doesn’t lean on clichés, the Burdens take a veritable Toadies song and perform it in a way foreign to the most of the album (though the following track, “Oh, Cecilia,” is equally adept at delivering an interesting take on the average rock song).” Delete this later, huh? Sam: Well, uh, I had exceeded my word count... Vaden: Dude, it’s a fucking blog! Sam: What, I can’t have standards? [Vaden punches Sam in the teeth. Sam spits out an incisor.] Sam: Great. Wonderful research and analysis, Vaden. Bitter Toadies fan gets his revenge, case closed, let’s get Taz and a whole bunch of rope. But did you ever consider that as one of the few bands in town to have enough clout to land on local radio playlists, you’re only on my radar because you choose to be? Besides, I really was gonna put that other stuff on the review because, as the other part of the album already said, it’s not a complete failure of a rock record. You guys aren’t amateurs playing at all-ages venues like The Door, for Chrissakes. I just wish Baboon’s self-titled record, which takes its cues from a much wider spread of rock influences, rocks a lot harder and came out around the same time, would get as much attention as yours. But I guess those guys don’t break into my house, tie me down and bust up my teeth. Vaden: You know what? That’s what we do. We tie our fans down and bust their teeth up...with rock. You can hang around your bedroom with your freak-folk records and feel high and mighty about pissing on Mercy, but it is big, dumb rock, the kind of stuff that you deep down love, even if your hipster ass wants to pretend otherwise. The Toadies were an unhappy thing for me, Interscope screwing us over and all, and if you can’t hear it on the record, I’m having fun being in a rock band again. I feel this music, and I know you nod your head to it, too, as our huge guitars, slicked up by heavy-duty production, tear through your speakers. We aren’t a bunch of emo pussies or alt-country dweebs. We’re the rock band that everyone else is afraid to be, and we’re proud of that. [While Vaden distracts himself with his monologue, Sam manages to untangle his ropes, smack Taz in the back of the head and kick Vaden in the balls. Sam drags their bodies out of the house and into the street.]
Judge for yourself: Sample Mercy with links from the Burden Brothers' Web site or order the album from Amazon  . |
