Merciful Heavens is the solo project of Christian Glakas from Austin, who used to be in The Good Looks. This album is reflective of what he's lived through as many of his friends departed far too young, it's downbeat but there is always a certain amount of hope in the songs.
The album opens with Apples, well how do you like them Apples, from the sound of this it's stewed with some cinnamon and a side order of pain and loss for someone they'll see again on the other side, or as this would have it the title of an album I never wish to hear again.
Underground has some very cool sounds in the way the stereo effects work on this tune, it's gentle and bucolic filled with melancholy and a realization of how life has turned out and what a drain it is on your energy.
For Now feels like the gentler end of Little Feat as he wallows in the mire, remembering all the friends he's lost to I'd guess drugs, Covid, cancer and life in general and how he's trying to look forward to how life is without those friends.
Where The Rising Sun Will Find You opens with a gorgeous ringing acoustic guitar to accompany a song about the listlessness of sorrow and pain he's been going through as everything has collapsed around him, somehow he's emerged from the ashes to start again making this a very gentle song of renewal and re-birth.
Inside Out you've been turning him, while he feels upside down and not quite right as the ghost whispers over his shoulder the advice, he needs to explain what's gone on over a gently evocative backing.
The album closes with Fluid Days that does indeed have some rather Fluid guitar playing and a genteel down home back yard folk feel to it, with some gentle cries to the Merciful Heavens for redemption.
Find out more at https://www.mercifulheavensmusic.com https://www.getloudrecordings.com/mercifulheavens https://www.facebook.com/mercifulheavensmusic
