Merriment (album)

Merriment
Studio album by Vic Chesnutt
Released	29 August 2000
Genre	Folk-Rock Alt-Country
Label	Backburner records
Vic Chesnutt chronology
The Salesman and Bernadette (1998) Merriment (2000) Left to his Own Devices (2001)

Merriment is a 2000 album by Vic Chesnutt. The album is a collaborative effort between Georgia based musicians - Vic Chesnutt and Kelly & Nikki Keneipp, with Chesnutt writing and singing the songs, and the Keneipps playing the music. It was released on the Keneipps' own record label, Backburner Records, on August 29, 2000.

Reception

The music review online magazine Pitchfork Media gave Merriment an 8.0 stating:

You must realize by now that you've been tricked by Vic Chesnutt, the Br'er Rabbit of folk music. He doesn't write songs, he writes short stories. In Merriment, ghostly, dream-like images flit across your brain like fingers across pages, orchestrated by Chesnutt's frail voice and sinister lyricism. Chesnutt doesn't write songs, he directs and stars in film shorts: brief vignettes of wintry, slow-motion nativities radiating holiness and tableau dioramas of circus train wrecks. Vic doesn't write songs, he paints crude, unnerving folk art-- scenes like the album cover in which a smirking misshapen man with a bandaged head stands in the middle of a dirt country lane holding 11 roses and a homemade sign.^[2]

Track listing

All songs written by Vic Chesnutt.

Musical accompaniment by Kelly and Nikki Keneipp.

1. "Merriment" – 4:40
2. "Fissle" – 2:46
3. "Feather" – 2:46
4. "Sunny Pasture" – 2:43
5. "Preponderance" – 2:47
6. "Haiku" – 2:46
7. "Mighty Monkey" – 4:26
8. "DNA" – 3:00
9. "Deeper Currents" – 3:47
10. "Merriment Reprise" – 4:04

References