Troy Mercy isn’t easing into his solo career, ‘Cheap Machine’ just drops! It’s the third single from his debut ‘Let the Night Begin,’ out May 29 via Gitcha Records, and it carries that pent-up feeling of something held back too long, now let loose in one go.

The track runs on a riff so direct it barely needs explaining, the kind that hits you in the chest before your brain catches up, all wired into a blues-rock. Mercy’s been around long enough to make that kind of impact feel earned, having put in serious miles alongside people like Booker T. Jones and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, as well as players tied to Muddy Waters’ orbit. You can hear it in how ‘Cheap Machine’ moves, loose but never sloppy, like it knows exactly when to push and when to hold back.

He says the song came to him fully formed in a hot bath, which sounds like a joke until you hear it, because there’s something oddly immediate about it, like it didn’t go through the usual sanding-down process. Lyrically it takes a swing at that low-level, everyday kind of self-sabotage, trading time and attention for convenience until there’s not much left to show for it, though it never gets preachy about it.

Live, Mercy keeps things stripped to a power duo setup with drummer Harrison Foti, which suits this material. There’s no place to hide in that format, just volume and the kind of instinct you only get from playing night after night. “My live show is energetic and cathartic. I’m out there doing the Power Duo thing these days- electric guitar/exploding drums. You can see Harrison Foti (drums) and I in this video go at it like we were onstage. So that’s nice. Plus there’s enough dadaist imagery flying at your occipital lobe that you’ll be seeing new images every time you watch. We here at TroyCo Labs encourage you to watch our videos absolutely endlessly. To the point where you can’t hold a job and have completely neglected your personal hygiene seems just about right.”

Think the scrappy edge of The White Stripes or The Black Keys, but with a deeper blues backbone running through it.

‘Let the Night Begin,’ produced by Tim Carman, leans hard into that mix of rawness built around guitar with enough focus on songwriting to keep it from drifting into empty shredding.

Headline photo: Karen Jerzyk

Troy Mercy Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube
Gitcha Records Website / Facebook / Instagram