Fresh off the release of her new song “Swarm The Hive Mind,” Nashville artist mercury is back with “What You Want Me To Say” today – her second single of the past month. Inverting the intensity and gauzy grunge tones of “Swarm The Hive Mind,” “What You Want Me To Say” begins with the whisper of an acoustic guitar before slow-burning toward a cathartic eruption.
“I wrote this song when I was in a really bad headspace,” says mercury’s Maddie Kerr. “I was hurting extra because it felt like there were people who wanted me to stay there forever. This was simply a linear thought and emotion I needed to get out and something I wanted to say so badly, and it came out in the form of this song.”
Recorded with sought-after indie rock producer Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Snail Mail), “What You Want Me To Say” and “Swarm The Hive Mind” find mercury evolving the sound she captured on her recent EP Together We Are One, You And I. A three-track project that was an experimental voyage of grief, pain, and loss, oscillating between grunge and iridescent indie rock as it wanders through the depths of human suffering and emerge resilient.
mercury’s arrival late last year has had people taking serious notice of the budding star, and that recognition only grows with each new release. For mercury — born Maddie Kerr — songwriting is a form of survival, a means of finding clarity in an often cruel world. It’s everything Kerr has known dating back to the day 22 years ago when Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” blasted as she was born.
What you do think of mercury’s latest offering, “What You Want Me to Say”?
