Rolling in on a tidal wave of clamorous rock mercury—the project of artist Maddie Kerr—ushers in a formidable reintroduction to her music on her new collection “Together We Are One, You And I.” After releasing a pair of singles last year the Tennessee-based artist is back with a trio of sonically and emotionally turbulent songs, as well as an audacious but consuming short film to which they serve as the soundtrack. Catch her at Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles on August 2nd for the final night of her tour!
Growing up in the rural edges of Franklin, TN the process of making music for Kerr has always been about perseverance—using songwriting as a way to make sense of and endure all that life tends to throw at her. With a lyricism that slices deep into the raw and tender places of the heart and a sonic output that echoes their daunting but fiercely cathartic power.
From the moment she was born, arriving to the tune of “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star, she’s been surrounded, immersed, and absorbed into a world of unabashedly vulnerable and visceral music. One that she’s evidently drawn on when fashioning the sounds of her project mercury, which oscillates between the heady heaviness of grunge and wistfully urgent indie-rock.
Last year’s offerings “Trying” and “Woolgathering” emerged as roiling, momentous expulsions of bottled-up pain and love. Both revealed mercury’s penchant for composing grandiose soundscapes that resound with combustive passion. She doesn’t just sing about the quaking emotions that pile up inside her—she sets them ablaze. Nowhere is that more true than on her newly released collection of singles “Together We Are One, You And I,” which chronicles a period marked by grief, loss, and the hopeless reeling catalyzed by both.
Amidst the fuzzy hammer of riffs and crashing percussion of “Born in Early May” comes mercury’s surreal lyricism, macabre, foreboding, with just a hint of woe-begotten hope as the track splinters into howling cacophony. As the opener for both the trio and the short film (directed by Harrison Shook), the song plays over a stunning and startling array of images: a tree consumed by fire, bodies wrapped in white sheets, lonely bodies in despair looking to religious iconography for comfort.
Mercury juxtaposes the conflagration of “Born in Early May” with “Special,” a track that rumbles steadily toward an act of surrender as its nullifying, liberating crescendos wash over you. While its finale “Crick” translates a frustration with being unable to articulate her innermost feelings into a vociferous flailing of guitars, affirming her fluency in rock’s dissonant din.
Whether you find yourself swept away by the deluge of noise that thunders in her songs, drawn to the unnervingly truthful poetry of her lyrics, or cannot pull yourself away from the otherworldly, cinematic splendor of her music videos—mercury is one artist you need to be paying attention to right now.
Don’t miss out on seeing mercury at Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles on Friday, August 2nd!
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Words: Steven Ward
Visit mercury on their website and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
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