Mercury builds her own world of whispers on MERCZONE

Mercury’s voice squats low in the mix on the deceptively titled “KNUCK BUCK.” Despite the all-encompassing low end and clattering trashcan stomps, she refuses to break a sweat, hoarse bars rolling off the tongue in an under-articulated flurry: “These n****s ain’t seeing me even with glasses / They study my swag, they in Mercury classes.” Her demure cadences seem better suited to soothing infants than turning up shows, even as the bassline rattles windowpanes and subwoofers. It’s a tidy microcosm for MERCZONE, the Atlanta rapper’s long-gestating debut album, which glides through a wide range of sonic influences with preternatural calm, anchored by her steady murmurations.

Pushing brash beats up against silvery vocals is nothing new for the 23-year-old rapper who’s been juxtaposing hard and soft sounds since her 2020 breakout “Slob On My Kat.” Fans of 2022’s tabula rasa or even 2021’s 14-minute MERCTAPE won’t be shocked by any of the textures on the Atlanta rapper’s latest, not the samples of Coco & Clair Clair, Basement Jaxx, or St. Vincent via Twilight: New Moon. But MERCZONE marks a clear evolution in how Mercury interweaves these sounds, blending them more than its predecessors.

Her previous EPs and projects could be, well, mercurial, flitting from woozy ballads to moshpit-targeted ragers to blissfully stoned boasts. There’s still plenty of palette variation to be found on MERCZONE, but the music coheres around the Atlanta rapper’s voice, somewhere between Billie Eilish’s stage-whisper falsetto and the ASMR enunciations of Valee. Exasperated and exuberant raps alike are delivered in a muttered woosh as if recorded from six feet away; beats frequently bury fragments of her verses behind titanic instruments, and she sometimes mushes phonemes into deformed shapes, more evocative than intelligible.

The emphasis on tones and timbres pushes these songs into moodier territory than their lyrics might suggest, like on “FAKE BITCH,” where she sing-songs, “Living rent-free / Up in this bitch doooome,” with an exaggerated dramatic pause; despite the snarling bass around her, Mercury’s husky drawl conveys boredom or even pity, beyond mere braggadocio and contempt. These small, recurring contrasts add depth of field to the album’s straightforward focus on getting lit, getting loot, and getting laid.

It’s a testament to Mercury’s thoughtful curation and the producers behind the boards — frequent collaborators Nephew Hesh and Glen the Saiyan, Awful Records OG Ethereal, and more — that even when MERCZONE pulls from trendier scenes these tracks avoid feeling derivative, filtered and fine-tuned into quirkier forms. Jersey club-lite “RICK ROSS” cribs that genre’s go-to kick pattern at a far lower BPM: Rather than sprinting in doubletime to prove her lyrical bonafides, Mercury hits a light jog, sighing, “I’m rocking Rick no Ross.” The hectic din of “INFLUENCER BAG” is a Frankensteinian fever dream, if Dr. Frankenstein got really into Pi’erre Bourne. Of special note are “MIRACLE,” where Mercury teeters over a steamy riddim, deftly shuffling in and out of the pocket, and “SPIN DA BLOCK,” where Mercury rasps her verses at a staccato clip, breathy ad libs draped over her verses like organza or frost.

But MERCZONE’s nonchalant approach to legibility can also be frustrating. Closer “ZONE” rides a ridiculous robotic voice into the ground (think “Laughin’ to the Bank” turned way past 11), and picking out specific lyrics from a solid half of the album necessitates concerted attention. But where another rapper might see this as an opportunity to lyrically phone it in, Mercury remains consistent with her grind, throwing off slick punchlines no matter how audible they might be. Active listeners are accordingly rewarded with idiosyncratic baubles: “I’m Wil E. Coyote, these bitches molasses” (“KNUCK BUCK”), “Spent your whole rent on a rug from Qatar” (“HIGH2GETBY”), and “These n****s synthetic like wigs and K2” (“BRAINTHREW”).

One enthralling exception to the rule is “BE BOPPIN,” which keeps Mercury’s exhaled verses front and center in the mix. The Ethereal and Nephew Hesh beat shimmers and strafes like the Perseids, and Mercury tumbles through with abandon, her flow kicking into gear like a pull-start lawnmower. "Bitch it’s ironic… Bitch it’s ironic…" She’s rocking packed out shows overseas, tallying up the bullets in her F&N, and advising other women, “Keep your hoe on a leash cuz that n**** be boppin.” It’s a breezy little victory lap, more than well-earned. If you close your eyes, you can practically see Mercury grinning ear to ear.