(Note: This review’s a little shorter than usual, I only got this album a couple days ago, but I really love it so far so I wanted to write up a short post on it partly for this site and partly for an Amazon review to give the album some ratings. -Tyler)
I’ve been in kind of a musical malaise for the past couple weeks. I grew bored of all the new stuff I had been listening to, and for some reason could only find a couple old albums I had any interest in at the moment. So a friend of mine suggested I poke around on CDBaby.com, as they have a great search engine for recommendations based on other bands you like. I found Mercury Landing while looking for bands similar to The Cat Empire, and this album has just blown me away. They have such a tight sound combined with the relaxing feelings of a jazz band, and a little bit of funk thrown in to spice it up. The musicianship is constantly impressive, the bass lines and drum beats don’t let up and the keyboard and guitars are excellent. The singer’s voice has a distinct similarity to Scotty Morris of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, which works really well with the rest of the band. Any fan of great fusion bands like The Cat Empire or Bela Fleck and the Flecktones needs to give this amazing album a listen. Favorite songs of mine are “Sante Fe,” “Everything” with its sweet bass intro, and the 10 minute long odyssey that is “Danman.” It’s available on both CDBaby and the Amazon mp3 store.
