There are parts of Common Loon songs that will make you feel like you've just cracked the balls off of the ends of a handful of thermometers and you've wolfed down all of its disagreeable contents. You think you've done something that you're going to regret, that's going to destroy you in short order. You're waiting for it. You're sensing all of the doom that must be lingering, believing that at any moment you'll begin foaming at the mouth and feeling all of your vital organs seize up and cease functioning the way that you need them to. You've got a foot and a half in the grave. You're perspiring, but are resigned to the thought that you brought all of this on. Those thermometers and all that quicksilver could have been left alone. It wouldn't have been that hard to not drink the quicksilver, but again, it's too late now. You fucking drank the quicksilver.
Matthew Campbell and Robert Hirschfeld, of the group from the Champaign-Urbana area of Illinois have a way of making you feel antsy in your seat, this way, as if you may have been poisoned and you're just waiting for it to do its worst, but they can also make you feel like you may have overdosed on sunshine as well. It's not quite clear what's affecting the moods of these songs, but they shake out in a way that makes you realize that - though the skies are a depressing gray - you can't recall ever ingesting mercury, so maybe you've overdosed on something other, something that's good for you in small amounts, but dangerous to the body in larger doses. It could be that you overdid it on butter or a perfume. It could be that you're never going to know until all your worst fears don't come true.