Upper Wilds Extend Their Planetary Cycle with ‘Mercury’

Brooklyn’s Upper Wilds have spent their run holding two impulses together: the weight of metal and the velocity of punk. On Mercury, the band’s new album and the latest entry in a planetary series that includes Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, that balance remains intact without turning formulaic.

The trio—vocalist and guitarist Dan Friel, bassist Jason Binnick, and drummer Jeff Ottenbacher—works the opening title track from a grim premise about a planet too close to the sun. Friel delivers lines like “Everything looks like fuel to a fire” over a locked rhythm section, while the album’s faster songs stay grounded in physical momentum.

Mercury doesn’t confine itself to one register. “Fever” pushes punk urgency forward with backing vocals from Erin Dawson of Genital Shame, while “Reaper” brings in Jeff Tobias on electronic wind instrument and lands somewhere stranger. The record also reaches toward mortality with “Green-Wood Cemetery” and “Death Song #3,” the latter carrying a chorus that echoes R.E.M.’s early-1990s arena phase without sounding borrowed.

Friel’s other band, Parts & Labor, returned this year with Set of All Sets after fourteen years, a fact that adds context to Upper Wilds’ output. Mercury closes with “Dying Star,” a space-rock