Mercy Union
White Tiger
Mt. Crushmore Records/Gunner Records
Friday, August 5, 2022

There was a moment recently that summed up the mood of White Tiger, Mercy Union’s second studio full-length. Frontman Jared Hart — who also headed up New Jersey punks The Scandals — was in Atlantic City with famed NJ punk rock promoter Andy Diamond, where the pair were day drinking in bar. They put 20 bucks in the jukebox and loaded it up with some of their favorite songs from the ‘90s by bands like The Wallflowers, Third Eye Blind, Samiam and the Goo Goo Dolls. In fact, in the middle of their selection, there were three songs by the latter in a row — something which caused a few eyebrows to be raised from some of the other patrons.

“Someone across the bar was like ‘What the fuck? Who put this on?’” remembers Hart. “And we were both like, ‘Yo! We did!’ Like, are we really going in on Goo Goo Dolls, because if someone’s got a problem with Rzeznik, you can come talk to me.”

That’s because, for Hart, it’s personal. When his sister, who’s 16 years older than him, was in college, she’d pick him up and they’d cruise around in her car and he listen in the backseat as they’d blast those bands, those songs. He has a deep connection to them.

“That’s what was on the radio,” he says, “and it was a formative time for me hearing loud guitars, songs with kind of snotty parts but with pop hooks. And I miss that shit. But I never had the confidence to make that kind of a record and tie in that past with my music. Until now.”

That’s because, finally, he found the confidence. The 11 songs on White Tiger don’t just capture the spirit and essence of those years and the powerful magic of its music, but are bursting at the seams with it. Opener “1998” — a homage to that pivotal, formative time in Hart’s life — rushes out of the garage like a windows-down spin in his sister’s car, recalling the wide-eyed excitement of youth as much as the sounds and songs of that period. And not just the radio rock, but also the bands who weren’t as well-known, whose influence, especially in the post-hardcore and emo scenes, was immeasurable.

“I was aiming for this record to be like a post-hardcore album from the late nineties or early 2000s,” says Hart, “when everyone was getting signed to a major and they got the major label budget so they just went for it and did all the crazy shit. Really, I just wanted this to be able to fit on the ‘Godzilla’ soundtrack.” 

Being staunchly DIY, Mercy Union — completed by Rocky Catanese (guitar/vocals) and Nick Jorgensen (bass/vocals), with Benny Horowitz on drums — didn’t have a major label budget, but you wouldn’t be a fool for thinking that they might have one. Recorded at Audio Pilot Studios by Hidden In Plain View’s Rob Freeman, mixed by Gates’ Kevin Dye and mastered by Mike Kalajian at Rogue Planet Mastering, in terms of the richness, fullness and depth of its sound, White Tiger would proudly sit alongside any of the albums that were instrumental in shaping Hart’s musical identity. Yet while these songs do honor the bands behind those records, they also acutely redefine the kind of band that Mercy Union is while simultaneously reinforcing the sheer force of their talent. It’s a statement of intent and a doubling down of ambition, as well as a set of songs that had the whole weight of existence on their shoulder. 

“The ultimate theme going into this record,” explains Hart, “was if this is the last record I ever make, I’m going to make the thing I’ve always wanted to make. In terms of the music, I feel like I finally reached the point where I could compose and arrange a sonically huge record where every part sounds like it does in my head. And in terms of the lyrics, I tried to take it to the most personal place that I have since my solo record. It means a lot of these songs are almost like an ‘If this is it, it’s it’ kind of thing. This album allowed me to fully experiment in all aspects, and gave me a blank slate of, ‘Oh, you can be weird in Mercy Union!’ and I only hope for it to get fucking weirder as time goes on. I truly feel like there’s no mold with this band. I don’t think we fit into a genre. I made this because I wanted it to sound like this. I wanted to hear this record — it’s one I personally think is missing from my library.”

That sense of urgency, determination and creative freedom — and, yes, weirdness — are the driving forces behind each of these songs. It’s a potent combination that inhabits the nervous energy of the anthemic “Prussian Blue” — a song written “about Chernobyl and the fact your life can be affected in such a negative way by the ignorance and incompetence of a handful of humans,” but which has taken on even more poignant and potent significance in recent months. 

That vitality also flows through the uplifting sadness of “The Weekend,” a song that’s as equally as defiant as it is resigned, and which explodes in its second half in an infectious turbo boost of post-emo/hardcore energy. “Jane Way,” “Jacob’s Corporate Ladder” and “Selective Memory” are equally epic and emotive songs that sound like old friends you haven’t seen for decades but which you remember fondly, while the hard-edged romanticism of “The Void” is a song that brings all those influences charging emphatically into the present. 

Because White Tiger — named for the ceramic white tiger brought back from Japan by Hart’s grandfather and which the band used as a votive during the recording process — doesn’t just honor the past. It captures the tension and uncertainty of the present day, too, and is very much a record made in and for and about these dark, difficult times. And although these songs rail against that darkness, Hart isn’t afraid to reveal his vulnerable side, namely on the beautiful, string-laden “Evergreen” and the raw, existential wistfulness of “Redeye (EWR>SNA),” a track caught between decades that sees Hart nail an incredible falsetto on its second vocal line. 

“Five years ago, I couldn’t sing like that,” he chuckles. “I always hid behind the growl in order to stay in tune and to be loud and project. This was my first time allowing myself to be out there by myself.”

All of that — the torment and solace and loneliness and sadness and hope and redemption and vulnerability and defiance, not to mention Mercy Union’s sonic left swerve — is channeled into “Basements,” the record’s remarkable closer. A swell of intense emotion that’s at once melancholy and optimistic, it’s less a song than an anthem, and less an anthem than a profound feeling and understanding of what it means to be human, to exist. “That song,” explains Hart, “goes through the peaks and valleys of questioning existence and questioning your own mortality, and then, in the end, eventually becoming comfortable with not only your own, but that of the people around you.” 

Mentally, a lot of people purposefully don’t put themselves in that headspace, but over the last two years, there was nothing but time, and reason, to think about that. It’s pure human survival, both mental and physical — being able to cope with the decisions of others and how they affect you, and being able to take hold of them and hopefully get through it to not just survive, but hopefully thrive at some point.