Greg Mendez: Beauty Land

“Frog” lasts 73 seconds and consists of a single sung line, “Please forgive me for my faults,” delivered in a steady hum. “Sunsick” places listeners in a haunted landscape and a house through quick, breath-length imagery about pretending a garden is full of flowers, seeking forgiveness, and confronting anger, guilt, and alienation. Mendez has written this plainspoken, open-hearted style for over 15 years, recording alone without relying on new resources. “Beauty Land,” his debut after signing to Dead Oceans, sounds sharper, with toy piano tones and more steel-like clarity that frames strums and keyboard textures with late-afternoon shadows.

"“Please forgive me for my faults.” His voice never rises above a hum. It's over in 73 seconds, but I haven't felt so harrowed by 73 consecutive seconds of music all year."

"“I pretend your garden's full of flowers every morning/They forgive me for the things I've done and the things I will become when I'm angry,” he begins on “Sunsick”-within the space of one breath, he's situated us in a haunted landscape, a house, while Mendez unpacks the groceries, looks around, and realizes there is “no one else I have to blame” for this massive, human-sized loss. He sits alone, absorbing the hammer blow of his guilt and his total alienation within it."

"Mendez has been writing these types of songs-so plainspoken and open-hearted you fear for their safety-for over 15 years now. Beauty Land is his debut since signing to Dead Oceans, but Mendez has altered nothing about his approach nor availed himself of any new resources to make it, because his music requires nothing he doesn't already have. He records everything alone, as he always has, and his songs cast their frightened shadows against your mind's eye, scurrying away into the deeper folds of your subconscious when you turn to look at them."

"Maybe the room in West Philadelphia he recorded Beauty Land has better acoustics than your average bedroom, or maybe he just fussed a little longer with his set-up, but Beauty Land sounds just a bit sharper than Mendez's usual. The toy piano plinks on “I Wanna Feel Pretty” and “No Evil” ring out with a steeliness that gives Beauty Land a starker profile than his previous records, as if there were late afternoon shadows framing every rough-handed strum and blot of keyboards."

Read at Pitchfork