Hair Police – Mercurial Rites

Does anyone know about the colors? Are all copies on translucent red vinyl?

Mercurial Rites is the “first proper full-length” from Kentucky’s Hair Police since their stunning 2008 Certainty of Swarms (No Fun Productions). I hate to give the impression that Hair Police are predictable, but they do have a very reliable aesthetic language; theirs is a vocabulary which is raised like a dull blade, a heavy hammer. You understand the uses of the form, though perhaps the specifics are lost. That series of staggered, groping empty handfuls in the dark is exactly what Mercurial Rites coughs up. This is an album of decay, fading away as it progresses. Whether or not there’s any sort of commentary regarding the current state of “things,” well, that’s up to you to decide I suppose.

“We Prepare” opens the album on familiar territory. Here is the continuation to “Freezing Alone,” the final track on Certainty of Swarms. Choked vocals screech out: “We prepare / for the final shift / we are ready to lose / we are ready to lose the final match.” Consider this Hair Police’s thesis for the album. Here is the travelogue through the wasteland, a dispatch from now, where everything sucks.

Reviewed by: Thomas Boettner

To read the full review go to Heathen Harvest:

http://heathenharvest.org/2013/03/14/hair-police-mercurial-rites/