Have Mercy

NYC’s Mooney Suzuki are one of the few “garage” bands of the modern age who manage to recreate the past while reinventing the future. The group has suffered member loss (since restored), major label turmoil and a few production gaffes, but Have Mercy, their fourth studio album, delivers on their earliest promises as a band that can swagger with the best of them. “99%,” the album’s leadoff cut, quotes an AC/DC-styled guitar chord, a Steve Miller Band groove and the “na-na-na” chorus of Deep Purple’s “Hush” all within the first two minutes. “Adam & Eve” evokes the R&B groove that indie-rock hipsters like Urge Overkill and Twilight Singers have regularly sought, but with an additional flute for Jethro Tull flavoring. “Rock ‘n’ Roller Girl” is a classic sock-hop ballad with swooning moonlit harmonies and the final admission: “You may be growing older…but you’ll never be older than the Rolling Stones.” “First Comes Love,” the Kinks shuffle of “Good Ol’ Alcohol” and the dark slow dazzle of “The Prime of Life” are first-rate rewritings of rock history where the Mooney Suzuki slyly paste themselves amongst their heroes as if they’d been there all along.