For the most part, the tunes you read about here at Jonk Music are selected by our editor, Jon Kjarsgaard. If a certain track hasn’t been snatched up by a writer after a week or three, Jon usually quietly discards it and we all kind of awkwardly pretend the song never existed. As of last week, “Anxiety’s Door,” a seven-minute machine by Merchandise, had been sitting untouched in the pile for over three months. But Jon knew the track was too good to go to waste, so he sprinkled a dash of hope over it and kept waiting.
Fast forward to last Friday in Chicago. After watching band on band on band at Pitchfork Music Festival, our group made the go-getter decision to head to The Bottom Lounge for an aftershow. As it turned out, Merchandise was headlining the bill. And of course they opened — excuse me, lit the fricking set ablaze — with “Anxiety’s Door.”
After eleven hours of music (and about as many beers), Merchandise gave us the claustrophobic kick we were in dire need of. Moving on a one track mind of attacking guitars and a busy-as-hell set of sticks, “Anxiety’s Door” is a song that starts loud and somehow only gets louder. It’s restless, young, and kind of a mess; hell, most of the words get lost in the surrounding instrumentation. But it works. It works for seven glorious “don’t you even think about slowing down” minutes. No one knocked on “Anxiety’s Door” for months, but when the opportunity arose, it came flying off its hinges.