Mercyland - Mercyland

Mercyland's self-titled album finally fleshes out the band's first incarnation, raw post-punk from Athens, Georgia, recorded years before David Barbe stood behind Bob Mold in Sugar.

Barbe fronted this trio in the mid-to-late 1980s, and it's a louder, more traditionally punk animal than anything he would later be known for, urgent and messy in the specific way that only comes from a genuinely angry kid with a guitar and little patience for polish. This self-titled collection brings together this early era before the band moved on to more developed material, eventually released decades later as We Never Lost a Single Game, making it the true original document rather than the more accomplished sequel.

Amerigod opens with a screech of feedback and never really calms down afterward. Fall of the City is the album's most relentless moment, machine-gun drumming beneath jagged, distorted chords that sound exactly as crazy as the title suggests. Vomit Clown honestly earns its ridiculous name, two minutes of DIY genius that differentiates between The Blasters and The Ramones without ever sounding like a pastiche of either.

Long before Sugar made Beard a name outside of Athens, this is where he actually learned how to be furious in less than three minutes. It holds up.