Oh Mercy - Great Barrier Grief (Album)

From the band that brought you In The Nude For Love comes a brand new, eleven-track extravaganza, Great Barrier Grief. Get it? Grief. Like, instead of reef. It seems the pun-police really need to exercise some authority over Oh Mercy before this kind of hilarity gets out of hand. Seriously though, upon reading the title, the temptation here is to judge the record by its cover. The reality is that maybe, just maybe, you should. Unfortunately, in doing so, you’ll be spared much frustration.

The title, Great Barrier Grief, is apt enough: Melbourne’s Oh Mercy seem to have encountered their glass ceiling, cowering at once with little sign of creative bravado. It’s not so much that the record is a reserved affair, it’s that it’s bewilderingly timid, even alongside the band’s debut. The equation is simply this: take Privileged Woes, dilute it a little, and voila. Great Barrier Grief somehow sounds smaller, tinnier and less inspired than its predecessor. For that reason, it comes across as a complacent outing.

There are unfortunately many indications that Oh Mercy are on auto-pilot in this acoustic-obsessed void. The production featured across the album seems intent on bleeding its elements together forming an enduring, indistinguishable lull in which ideas and sounds seem to be repeated constantly. Sometimes this sensation proves alarmingly real. For instance, the melodic similarity between one of their previous tracks, Broken Ears and a new offering, Tenderness, is both astounding and disappointing. It demonstrates the band traversing chartered territory, the most basic elements of their music continually resurrected and repackaged, a thinly-veiled illusion that ensures a typically bland offering. It manages to plateau - or perhaps the term is flat-line - from beginning to end.

It’s because of this trend that the average listener is likely to have the album sussed out in record time. For any music enthusiast, such a short-lived process is far from fun. Surely music and its discovery should be rewarding - instead, here, the challenge is lost and in its place is a collection of songs that appear average at best. It's a crying shame that such sensational poetry courtesy of front man Alexander Gow should suffer due to such a complacent backdrop. A disappointing affair in desperate need of spark, surprise and intrigue.

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