Mercury Rev: The Light In You (Bella Union)

 |   |  <1 min read

Mercury Rev: Rainy Day Record
Mercury Rev: The Light In You (Bella Union)
With their breakout album Deserter's Songs (98) and its follow-up All I Dream

(01), New York's Mercury Rev were the gold standard for an elegantly psychedelic alt.rock band, and their association with Flaming Lips (Rev's multi-instrumentalist Dave Fridmann has been a longtime Lips producer) enhanced their allure and status.

Then there were diminishing returns and fewer releases, and this — their first in seven years -- is a reduced Rev with Fridmann busy elsewhere.

Much of their summershine, airy psyche-rock is still evident and mainman Jonathan Donahue's slightly surreal lyrics and floating vocals conjure up gravity-free states of mind.

But where they once had some bite, this is more consistently cloud-blown glisten than grit.

That said, eerily dreamy songs like the disembodied angst of Central Park East, the orchestrated pastoralism of Autumn's in the Air, the Lips-like Are You Ready? and the delicate Moth Light are bound to have wide appeal.

Their sole rocker Sunflower and the poppy Rainy Day Record sound at odds with everything else however.

Not quite the return to form you'd hope for, but an undeniably pleasant soundtrack as the weather warms.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

The Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Darkest Light, The Best of (Strut)

The Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Darkest Light, The Best of (Strut)

As I understand it (and I've never heard of these guys before) this band was a loose affiliation of ex-pat US musicians who got together in France in the Seventies and delivered such primo funky... > Read more

The Broken Heartbreakers: How We Got to Now (brokenheartbreakers.com)

The Broken Heartbreakers: How We Got to Now (brokenheartbreakers.com)

While the Broken Heartbreakers were preparing for their current New Zealand tour (see dates below) it was the first anniversary of the passing of their longtime friend and sometime collaborator Sam... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

BILLY APPLEⓇLIFE/WORK by CHRISTINA BARTON

BILLY APPLEⓇLIFE/WORK by CHRISTINA BARTON

Although a jury of art critics and curators might reach a favourable consensus about Billy AppleⓇ's 1974 exhibition From Barrie Bates to Billy AppleⓇ1960-1974 – which occupied the... > Read more

STEVE REICH'S CAREER CONSIDERED: From taxi driver to concert master

STEVE REICH'S CAREER CONSIDERED: From taxi driver to concert master

It’s a rare composer who can simultaneously alienate and enthral distinct sections of an audience:  Igor Stravinsky unintentionally managed it in 1913 when he premiered The Rite of... > Read more