Mermen
In God We Trust (KMA)“Starfish and giant foams greet us with a smile,” sang Jimi Hendrix on “1983 … (A Merman I Should Turn to Be),” Electric Ladyland‘s watery ode. “Before our heads go under, we take a last look at the killing noise.” Mermen trident Jim Thomas remains that killing noise. Leading the instrumental S.F. trio’s original lineup – Thomas (guitar), Allen Whitman (bass), Martyn Jones (drums) – on its first studio LP in a decade, the real-life Merman channels not instrumental surf music as much as water therapy. Short of Dick Dale and the Ventures’ Nokie Edwards, no guitarist has captured oceanic thunder better than Thomas, the only one of the three whose sonic brand belongs to the Radiohead era. Third, final, and best Atlantic Records offshoot, 2000’s The Amazing California Health and Happiness Road Show mated the retro shimmer of indie debut Krill Slippin’ (1989) to the titanic thrust of sophomore masterpiece Food for Other Fish (1994), both self-released works subsumed by the major label miasma of A Glorious Lethal Euphoria (’95) and its offshoot EP Songs of the Cows (’96). Unexpected return In God We Trust picks up where Health and Happiness left off, miles below any rocky surf, moving deeper and deeper into the depths of amniotic rock music. With five cuts between eight and 13 minutes and the remaining four tracks all over the five-minute mark, God digs in beginning with the soft opening of speciously titled first-responder “One Hundred Foot Lemon,” scene-setting mood enhancer/meander and longest board. Ten-minute follow-up “Trapeze” tiptoes the high wire of all-time Mermen classics with dreamy bell tones, its ping a gravity-free descent to luminous depths. “More Wood Less Head” continues the slice through peak brine like a nuclear submarine, its needlepoint hook and end siren a perfect whirlpool of completeness. “There Is a Door, It Opens, Then It Is Closed,” all 11 minutes next, doesn’t quite hang correctly on its three hinges, after which In God We Trust starts to drift. “Jesus in the Sky” makes for a pretty sunset, but an acrylic one in a beach motel. Meanwhile, midtempo paddle “Apo Calypso” splashes equal to its lemony title, though like so many Mermen strokes, its final funnel births its best moments. “Righteous Punishment” lacks just that, and “Costo Knowone” never reveals an identity, but skating closer “Last Forever (the Current Sea)” marries the idyllic purity of Krill Slippin’ to the instrumental metaphysics of The Amazing California Health and Happiness Road Show. Mitigating the success or failure of any one track is each individual note of In God We Trust. As with all Mermen discs, all droplets return to the same sea, the bigger body of water as it were, where each eddy and tidal pool ultimately moves within a larger mass. Man swims, but rarely do his senses isolate the droplets of water on his face as being apart from that in which his body is immersed.
This article appears in February 5 • 2010.
