Merlin Wall… coming to you at Taste of Randolph St. tomorrow, surf punk slackers for your summer!

The Wake mp3 Merlin Wall Crushin’ From Afar…. download it FREE …. come see them at Taste of Randolph, Sunday at 3:30, Main Stage East and at the Double Door June 30.

So I like bucking the trend, not reading my email, not knowing if I’m covering a band that’s solicited my attention or not. Why not, eh? It’s Saturday, I’ve worked hard all week, had my various commuter adventures that really should be forgotten and now I’m feeling rebellious. And I bring to you this band that I tripped over on my way to the Taste of Randolph St. For you out-of-towners (which frankly is 90% of my 5 current readers) Chicago is full up of wonderful street festivals which feature not only great food and shopping goodies but also, and most importantly, awesome bands. And on the various schedules for these glorious festivals you may find links to the bands scheduled to play.

On such a page I found this link to a band named Merlin Wall. What hooked me was not the name, not the pretty album cover, but these words: ” surf-punk slackers.” Yes, darlins, I’m just that easy. Their bandcamp page is truly a treasure trove of slick, chilled-out tunes which feature a good amount of guitar grinding and vocal distortion to please the 80s punk girl in me. Merlin Wall stays true to the part of punk aesthetic that require simple bass lines and repetitive beats. But don’t be fooled, it’s all indie. Dispassionate vocals and angst-ridden lyrics betray that middle-class anomie that will always cause this generation to cry nostalgically into their PBRs. Now if we can just get them to wipe that smirk off their faces the rest of the time we might feel for them sometimes, eh?

Don’t let that stop you from enjoying Merlin Wall. There’s plenty of clashing and crashing to really say something here. I’d recommend this album to you to buy, even if they hadn’t gone and given it away for free – the fucking slackers, xoxo