Merchandise – “Become What You Are”

 Previously mentioning this underappreciated and absurdly clandestine revival of late 70’s/early 80’s baritone, Merchandise have another fluid track of bare-boned hopelessness. The track, included in their ‘Children of Desire’ EP, is named “Become What You Are”. The song is a forgiving, nostalgic jingle jangle of wet guitar chords and scrappy, scotched and smoked vocals. Sounding like one of the lost tapes of John Peel himself, Merchandise are easily one of the best revival acts currently out on the indie music scene. The NME recently ranked their ‘Children of Desire’ EP at 24 in the best 50 albums of 2012 table. Although, NME are the trashy tabloid music news medium in music culture-so perhaps you’d have to finely navigate your fingers toward your head, erode away the thick, peppermint wax of insufferable old Saint Nick Christmas songs from your ears and listen for yourself. If you do like Joy Division, but don’t like Merchandise, well, I doubt a 6 minute baritone break from Bing Crosby will induce acrimony.