Skin of Evil (Soft Abuse)

Carey Mercer isn’t known for restraint. In Frog Eyes, the frontman lets loose a barrage of madman howls and jarring falsetto yelps atop the Victoria outfit’s high-energy carnival rock. Blackout Beach tames Mercer’s music—most songs revolve around minimalist beats and scant guitar strums—but lyrically the singer is as wild as ever. “I think there was men before me who were too scrambled by Donna’s awesome, awesome power,” he croaks on opener “Cloud of Evil”, setting up the album’s themes of love and obsession while heavily reverberated guitar lines collide with choral moans.

Bombastic drum fills explode on the lovelorn “William, the Crowd, It’s William” for seven seconds before a stark dub bass line takes over. Meanwhile, the album centrepiece, “The Whistle”, marks the end of the jealous protagonist’s sanity: “Fucking William/I shall crack his neck and perform one million castrations with his bones,” Mercer sings about Donna’s latest lover, as an electric guitar crackles through a broken patch chord. Through Bowie-styled piano ballads (“Nineteen, One God, One Dull Star”) and acoustic psychedelia (“Sophia, Donna, I Was Down the River Waiting”), the singer questions why we love the people we love.

While lacking the immediacy of his punky full-time gig, Skin of Evil’s midnight madness is a welcome addition to Mr. Frog Eyes’ always astounding catalogue.