Mercy Rule

with Evelyn Swoons, Zuzu’s Pedals at T.T. the Bear’s
by Chaz Thorndike

I dug Mercy Rule (Relativity) right off the bat. They’re fronted by a really short girl with a monstrous bass, whacking that bad boy, stomping around, and belting out words I couldn’t grasp through the mucky mix. Either they like the balls out, noisy, garage sound or their sound man was as plastered as I was. I dunno. The guitarist was absolutely mad! Slinging his guitar low and jammin’ ’til you thought he’d shred his strumming hand to little bits, this is a man who goes through a lot of picks. One rather endearing quality, (endearing? Jeez, where’d that one come from?) was the humor. After song one, one of them said, “Well, that’s one down. They all sound like that, more or less.”