After a 9 year gap The Quality Of Mercury are back with their second album Voyager, the band are mainly the solo project of Jeremiah Rouse who writes performs plays, produces and engineers everything apart from the drums played by Mario Quintero and the backing vocals by Violet Rouse.
The album opens with Moonrise a soft atmospheric intro of slow strummed strings, pulses and synths, that evolve into a post-rock song for those coming down into land, able to see that Moonrise above the horizon.
Radiate opens with post hardcore guitars raging away, sparks fly out for those stranded in distress at how heavy things have become, can you find a way to Radiate through the universe rather than fading away.
Ganymede is radio friendly alternative space rock, with cool pulsar sounds that get submerged by the heavy guitars and doomy atmospherics. The best thing on this single is the doom-laden instrumental part with some very expansive drums.
The main single Heaven's Gate is the most mosh pit ready tune on the album, inspired by the legendary turkey, this tune takes a few musical twists and turns, while Josh investigates his own version of Heaven's Gate and how you get to go through that gate.
Desperate Measures isn't a tribute to the London based New Zealand punk band, it isn't as apocalyptic as that bands 1984, this is grinding guitars and a wall of drums looking at all the despair of modern times, the need to escape to the furthest reaches of the universe to get away from all the madness.
Receiving Hertz listening for messages from across the universe, trying to make contact, or figure out what the sounds might mean, are they the answer to our search for other life forms or just a dream, the atmospheric sounds echo across the vast expanse.
Selenite is floaty laid-back music to gaze into the far reaches of the universe too. The album closes with Voyager continuing its journey to the furthest reaches of the universe, still sending back the odd message and information about the unknown places it visits, powered by the fluttering guitars and heavy reverb. The building instrumental towards the end sounds vast and probably needs to be heard on a big sound system to hear everything going on.
Find out more at https://thequalityofmercury.bandcamp.com/album/the-voyager-2 https://thequalityofmercury.com/ https://www.facebook.com/thequalityofmercury
