The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina

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Bouncing to the beat of an effervescent, jazz-influenced bassline, “Together” slams us with its gigantic bassline and gives us one of the more contagious grooves to swing our hips to in the whole of Little King and the Salamander (demos), the new record from The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina. 

Tracks like this one balance out the stoic dirge of “Thinking of You,” the violently eccentric “Hey Everybody” and the plaintive balladry of “What Fools We Can Be” by reminding us that the band is just as capable of introducing a bit of adrenaline into their sound as they are flirting with the excesses of modern pop. If The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina set out to show us how many layers there are to their songcraft with this album, to say that they succeeded would be a terrible understatement of epic proportions. “She’ll Do Anything” is one of the brighter tracks that we find in Little King and the Salamander (demos), and when enjoyed with spacier numbers like “I Have Always Been Here,” our appreciation for the bands intricately designed textures grows as their brash basslines do through the tracklist. “Fade into the Night” isn’t quite as gripping a piece as “Slip Away (Dreamin’ Again)” is, but they both serve their respective purposes wonderfully just the same. There aren’t as many groups with the confidence that The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina have when it comes to experimenting within the four walls of a recording studio, and that’s one of the main reasons why I think that their music stands out as much as it does right now. 

The hybridity of “White Light and Lullabies” isn’t isolated to the first half of the record – in fact, far from it. Excluding “The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina,” “I’ll Be (Kisses at Your Door)” is the most reverent and affecting tune that Little King and the Salamander (demos) has to offer. This track, along with The Velvet Underground B-side “Particle Craze,” make this record a required listen if you consider yourself to be as keen on indie bands as I do. A group like this one doesn’t come around every day, and when they do, they rarely stay together long enough for the general public to give them the credit and adulation that they truly deserve. “Jeepers Creepers” is a strange and decadent journey into the darkness that is essential to making the flow of this album’s second act what it ultimately is, and while “Definitely Not My Underwear” borrows its riff from a 60’s garage band that you probably never heard of, it couldn’t sound any more fresh and appropriate to our contemporary times and culture as it ends up sounding. 

The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for those of us who can’t get enough of a classically designed, riff-oriented rock n’ roll style, theirs is a brand that’s definitely worth cherishing. I’ve listened to a lot of good – and bad – new records in 2019, and though this LP debuted last year, it’s one of the smarter acquisitions that music enthusiasts can make this month for sure. 

 I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/the-merrymakers-orchestrina/1375728074

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Trace Whittaker

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

5/2019