Merlin Announce Electric Children: The Final Cut Due Oct. 1; Premiere “Bad Trip”
Masters as ever of self-memeing and presumably any number of other mystical arts, Merlin have revamped their 2016 album, Electric Children (review here) — new mix, new master — and will release it themselves as Electric Children: The Final Cut, on Oct. 1. When the Kansas City outfit first announced the arrival of their third record, they did so here while premiering opener “Bad Trip,” and so here we are again these give years later and you can find the new version of “Bad Trip” below. I give them credit for not making it four hours long in the manner of some other “final cut”-type offerings of our day.
A gritty reboot? Well, it’s not like they re-recorded it — yet; certainly such a thing wouldn’t be out of their reach — and to be honest, the original was pretty gritty. Listen to the new “Bad Trip” and you tell me. The new mix certainly hits into its own wash by the time the sub-three-minute run is up, but it comes through clearer as well, meaner and plenty full, maybe less garage-y in its spaciousness. For what it’s worth, “Night Creep” remains an essential hook and if you were worried the massive closer “Tales of the Wasteland” would lose some of its impact, no need to fret. For a band who’ve always had one foot in horror imagery, calling this sort of redux a ‘Final Cut’ à la the fourth Haloween or any number of other director’s editions makes sense. It’d be weirder if they didn’t.
Info follows the “Bad Trip” premiere below.
Enjoy:
Merlin, “Bad Trip” track premiere
Merlin are proud to introduce Electric Children: The Final Cut; a remixed, reimagined and remastered version of our third album, Electric Children. While we are extremely proud of the original release and can’t deny the level of fandom it gained us, we still felt there was always room for improvement.
This brings us to 6 years later.
Merlin is a different beast than it was back in 2015. We have changed our perspective on songwriting, reinvented our sound multiple times and have a firmer grasp of what we are as a band. Naturally this has lead us to jumping back into one of the biggest albums of our career. Electric Children: The Final Cut serves as the clearest, heaviest and most realized vision of the album we can give you all. Enjoy.
Track Listing:
1. Bad Trip
2. Electric Children
3. Will ‘o’ the Wisp
4. Night Creep
5. War Bringer
6. A Reprisal for Julia
7. Tales of the Wasteland
Re-Mixed and Mastered at Red Roof Productions by Bret Liber. Release date October 1st.
Cast:
Carter Lewis: Guitar, Synth, Organ, Backing Vocals
Caleb Wyels: Drums
Joey Hamm: Bass
Jordan Knorr: Vocals
