Tears of the Valedictorian is an incredibly dense record and may take several passes before you can even begin to peel away its layers.  Full text...

Mercer breaks from the crank-prophet line in that he wants to defeat his solipsism, to hack his way out of the thicket of male ghosts and build relationships-- with nature, lovers, family, his band and the listener. This album is peppered with references to himself as singer, from the epic second track "Caravan Breakers, They Prey on the Weak and the Old" ("I bet you are sick of hearing songs about the trail") to the entrancing near-closer "Bushels", which assures "there's a colony in song" and ends on the simple statement, "I was a singer and I sang in your home."  Full text...

Tears of the Valedictorian isn’t a regression as much as it is a juke; a jive to the side before an all-out charge. Although Mercer’s voice is now mixed in with his comrades, he’s never sounded more at home in his own songs, and his band are better than ever, continuing Folded Palm’s emphasis on glimmering guitar figures and delightfully obnoxious strains of synth.   Full text...

Tears of The Valedictorian is an interesting stab at a rock record, especially when Mercer more so ends the record chanting, cackling like a madman and barking like a dog (animals, again?). Listeners may very well have scratched a hole in their heads by the end of it, but that should in essence, be the moment of awakening -- that this might just be a smarter-than-thou record that might even have the most enlightened of folks in mental duress.  Full text...

Tears, more than anything, is beautifully constructed, clocking in at a lean 36 minutes, relying on a group of punchy, brief songs sandwiched by two epic tracks—the seven-minute “Caravan Breakers, They Prey on the Weak and Old” and the nine-minute “Bushels”—that make Play-Doh out of Frog Eyes’ mutant-rock.  Full text...

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