ALBUM REVIEW: Have Mercy – ‘NUMB’

You kind of forget about Have Mercy when they aren’t around. Throughout material that’s stood as a bulwark of perfectly-solid-to-good emo pretty much since the start, they’ve been unable to contend with being lapped and leapfrogged by more—horrible term alert—‘relevant’ acts that have blown their residual presence out of the way. And sure, part of that is probably deliberate; after the passing of original drummer Aaron Alt in 2019, no one would blame them for choosing to step back for a while. But there’s also a sense there of a band that people have become so comfortable with treating as part of the furniture, that they’ve proceeded to slip through the cracks as far as wider discussion goes. Like, did anyone even know they’d come back from hiatus?

It turns NUMB into perhaps what’s both more and less than the sum of the expectation underscoring it. It’s not a total flop for a start, which does need to be clarified when it’s on the unfortunate pedestal of simultaneously an understated return and a very-late-year release date. At the same time, it’s a noticeably lightweight album for Have Mercy, as a culmination of joy and optimism at being back in the saddle that drapes its brighter shades and tones over its entire existence. The cover feels like the first sign, in vivid, cartoonish hypnogogia that’s light years away from Have Mercy’s usual aesthetic. As for what’s actually contained within…it’s different than usual and still pretty good, but also wrapped tighter in a safety net than what’s really necessary.

It’s a shift that proceeds in earnest on the opener Alive, operating on similar planes of meaty emo melody that’s long been Have Mercy’s forte, but now swooping and soaring at grander heights, evidently carried by far gentler currents. Honestly, it sounds nice. It’s the kind of thing you can appreciate from a band making their resurgence as Have Mercy are, doubly so after weathering so much turmoil that forced them down that road in the first place. That’s the vibe that NUMB as a whole bears, ‘vibe’ being the operative word. It’s lighter and more fluid melodically, falling closer to emo-pop spaces with the bright, stuttering guitar on Hey, or the ebullient size and handclap punctuations of Middle.

Naturally, there are slower moments that remain, also eased further into lighter acoustics and some somewhat warmer palette colours. Big Surprise stands as the quasi-saccharine ballad, composed of spare guitar and glittery string beds, and Brian Swindle in the most emotively tart end of his vocal register. Floating is a better take on a similar theme overall, now predominantly with full instrumental backup (featuring some really fantastic drum rolls early on) and a wide-open-sky scope that remains intact. It leaves I Can’t Stay and Sick Of It as the nominal outliers,as they err closest to ‘classic’ Have Mercy in their usage of more minor, tense tones and overall darker feel.

And in a way, it also illustrates the greatest limitation with NUMB—the fact that, on the whole, this isn’t really like Have Mercy. Or at least, it isn’t like them in words of magnitude. There just isn’t the same kind of gravity that’s keeping this all down, or the churn that let you feel the weight of songs that’s not here by design. Nothing digs in as much as a track like Reaper did, by a fairly wide margin. Obviously that’s a conscious decision made, but it’s also one that’s firmly capped in terms of what it can achieve. Yes, there’s a catchiness that’s been allowed to shine more readily, but you can argue that’s at the expense of something greater within Have Mercy’s makeup.

In the songwriting, it’s perhaps even more forward-facing, and evident of how safely NUMB seems to be playing. Obviously there’d always be songs like Hey or Hit The Ground, reaching out the fans who’ve stuck by for this long, with genuine gratitude running through them. But they’re very isolated examples, standing amid a sea of big, empowered vagueries that don’t hold nearly the reverence they’re likely supposed to. At least there’s the odd moment of real release from Swindle who, to his credit, can definitely sell material like this. He’s showing off more restraint but in a workable way, to field some great personal connection in these songs. It’s a question of whether he not he really gets there though, particularly towards the end when NUMB can be wanting for the momentum to feel as triumphant and ready to run into the sunset as it needs.

But even with all of that, it’s impossible to hate something like this. It’s too milquetoast of a listen to have that negative of a reaction to, for starters, but also, the place of true earnestness it comes from can redeem a lot. It’s clearly the beginning of a turning point for Have Mercy, where there’s less severity but also creative health that shines bright. On top of that, NUMB definitely feels like the easing-in period of this era, where the big, overflowing emotions have taken precedence over the fine-tuning and growth that’s sure to follow. Maybe this might be where Have Mercy’s run as background second-stringers ends, or at least where they can begin to shed such notions. On perseverance alone, they deserve it.

For fans of: Transit, Real Friends, This Wild Life

‘NUMB’ by Have Mercy is released on 8th December on Rude Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall