Deaf Wish : Mercy
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Deaf Wish : Mercy

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Throughout their career, Deaf Wish have defied convention in a flippant manner that would cause even Sir John Kerr to blush.

Throughout their career, Deaf Wish have defied convention in a flippant manner that would cause even Sir John Kerr to blush. It took until the cusp of the band’s premature break-up in 2010 for Deaf Wish to release their debut ‘official’ album; in the two years prior, Deaf Wish had made a CD-R release available via informal distribution mechanisms and, just as the videocassette arrived at the end of the same historical dead-end path as the long-lost eight-track format, a VHS-only single.

Counter-intuitively, the band decided to celebrate the aftermath of their break-up by recording and releasing their debut CD, Mercy, a collection of tracks recorded while original guitarist Sarah Hardiman was visiting Melbourne from her current abode in the UK.

Deaf Wish’s disdain for predictability is evident in the eclectic selection of tracks: within the first half of the record Deaf Wish swing seamlessly from the soft, melodic beauty of The Beat Of Nothing’s Wrong to the sludgy industrial intensity of The Line Between Us; from the grinding Sesame Street-pop of Elementary School, to the spitting anger of I Hate You.

VHS and Cheese renders the unquantifiable wonders of slacker share-house existence in a Pacific North-West rock wash, Get On The Plane bubbles over with passion and a threatening dose of bile and D.E.A.F. is a collage of deranged rhetoric and industrial psychedelic punk noise. With aural senses on the verge of obliteration, Disappear drenches Nick Pratt and Hardiman’s call-and-response in a viscous blend of jarring guitar before the sparse tones of Mercy signal the end of Deaf Wish’s journey from dark rock through light pop and everywhere in between.

The world is a poorer place for Deaf Wish’s departure from the punk rock music scene. Deaf Wish are gone for the time being (save for a recently announced European tour), but will never be forgotten. Like the memories of Deaf Wish’s live performance, Mercy is a musical creation to savour.


Out Not on Radio Records


By Gary Gilmore