The Morning After: Blackout Beach's Skin of Evil

Skin of Evil, released January 27 on Soft Abuse

Report Card: A-

In regards to sanity, Carey Mercer could go either way. The prophetic declarations of times past that mark much of his work have established his position as heir to the throne of Scott Walker and Current 93’s David Tibet—like those men, he breaks many of the unwritten rules about how to be a successful vocalist, while also lending a healthy push to the question of whether the guy in charge is a genius or merely a madman. And while Mercer seems a little reined in by the full band nature of his primary project, Frog Eyes, and even more tempered by Swan Lake (the super group à la eccentric of Mercer, Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade, and Dan Bejar of Destroyer and The New Pornographers), his Blackout Beach project gives him the opportunity to go, without checks and balances, absolutely apeshit.

And that’s what he does with Skin of Evil, a deliciously murky concept album built around Donna, the notion of the perfect woman, and her past and present lovers, most of them woefully scorned, yet loving her nonetheless—on a scaffolding of chiming but stark guitar and otherwise complementary instrumentation and backup vocals, rarely is an album elevated so greatly via a close inspection of the lyric sheet. For without it, it’s nearly impossible to sort out the complexities Mercer injects into Skin of Evil’s cosmology, just like it’s also nearly impossible to imagine someone belting vocals with such manic, panicked sincerity. As such, the, dare I say, poetic lyrics are 100% fit for overthought grad school analysis (“my enemy is time,” “woe to the minds of soft men,” etc.), with dramatic notions of passion and mortality very near the surface. Flames, a vague pastoralia, militarism, and a brooding sense of despair also shape the verbal aspect of an album that relies heavily on interpretation to fatten up its dense and notably pop-less thirty minutes. Listen after listen, it’s astounding that a man could make such a romantic album seem so utterly startling.