Merlot Embargo’s debut release "Don’t Look Back" plays less like an album and more like an indie-rock experience. Hitting the listener with touches of youthful wonder and sometimes upfront honesty and angst, Merlot Embargo finds a way to inject some refreshing creativity into every square inch of their 9 track LP. 

"Don’t Look Back" thankfully does not try to be like any other piece of art in its genre. Though Merlot Embargo employs indie-pop overtones within their album, it only takes one listen to discover that there are many other driving forces at work. Blues-style blasts of sweeping guitar chords, driving drums, and multi-layered strings pepper tracks like “We All Fall Down,” “How To Survive An Apocalypse,” and “Storms,” providing the album with an epic, driving atmosphere. Tracks like “In The End” and “All Who Are Lost” are gripped with beautiful melodies and heart-felt lyrics, taking the listener beyond the music and into the life of the artist. 

The husband and wife/songwriter and producer duo who make up Merlot Embargo, Geoff and Scarlet, feel they owe their creative spark to a near fatal automobile accident during the winter of 2014. Their flirt with death unleashed a sort of creative floodgate that gave the pair a vision to paint the world with their music. “It was clear,” says Geoff, “that we had something special.”

"Don’t Look Back" is an album with great songs that, as a whole, creates something thematically and musically unique. With individual moments of creativity and risk-taking, "Don’t Look Back" puts Merlot Embargo miles ahead of other bands. As Scarlet sings on the opening line of “Head Above The Water,” “Some things in life will knock you off your feet.” Indeed, Merlot Embargo is one of these things. 

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Purchase "Don't Look Back" by Merlot Embargo

William Wilson is a freelance writer, musician, husband, and connoisseur of the finer things in life. For contact info, send a email to writewilliamwilson@gmail.com