Reviewed by Paul Keeble

St John And The Revelations are a Canadian band who have re-located to California and have a big online following. In tasteful grayscale packaging, 'Mercy' is their first full album, after a well-received EP, 'Halo'. The first song "Hear Me Now" is a slow acoustic guitar number - brave to start an album down-tempo. The second song is slower. And the third. . . is also slow, though bits of percussion, piano and ethereal keyboard are now present. And as it turns out, the opener is one of the faster songs! Having said that, St John And The Revelations' material is, for the most part, well-crafted (with a couple of dirges) and the voice and mostly picked guitar with other bits of the arrangements work individually - it's just that as a whole the CD gets a bit monotonous. Standout song has to be "Sky Lights Up", a meditation on the Iraq war ("The sky lights up and the city prays/Freedom is won this way"). The final song, the haunting "To Let You Go" must have the longest fade-out as percentage of total track ever - a nice T-Bone Burnett-ish production touch. If you like your music thoughtful, acoustic and melancholic with dollops of cello, you will love this. Think Radiohead unplugged with less weird noises.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

Interested in reviewing music? Find out more here.