reviews

Mercury Rev

'Snowflake Midnight'

Released on 29 September 2008 on V2

Mercury Rev recently described new album `Snowflake Midnight` as a "leap out into the cosmos", and it`s fair to say they weren`t exaggerating. SM follows the psychedelia-of-the-soul template of the band’s previous three albums, but the rules of engagement we find here revolve much more heavily around electronically generated beats and synthesised central motifs. If `Deserters Songs` and `All Is Dream` were concerned principally with long and winding paths from dark into the light, and `Secret Migration` was about finding said light, then `Snowflake Midnight` is a proposition that borrows from both of those concepts but exists in a completely different plane, both serene and chaotic, examining the inherent strangeness and gaps in the narrative journey.

Musically the album is probably Mercury Rev’s least accessible work to date but, although this is a slow burn of an album, even from the first listen it is never off-putting or deliberately obtuse - rather there is always a sense that if you give it a few more spins there is far more waiting to be discovered. Guitars are conspicuous by their absence from most of the album, a condition that the band put down to the limited amount of equipment at their disposal due to the transfer of gear to a new studio. They say this led them to use synths and other instruments largely untouched since `Boces`. The electronic feel to the album creates an icy texture, enhanced by the more-sparing use of Jonathan Donahue’s vocals than in previous albums. This is no bad thing however, as the lack of verse-chorus-verse protocols gives more space for ethereal atmospherics on the tracks to breathe.

This album feels like Mercury Rev are moving into uncharted waters and, while this isn’t a musical statement to match Radiohead’s trajectory-abolishing `Kid A`, like that record, the signs of a band becoming unafraid to spread their wings in any direction they see fit are stamped all over `Snowflake Midnight`.

Posted on 29 September 2008 by Bob Ferguson

Tags: Mercury Rev Snowflake Midnight Album Review

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Mercury Rev

'Snowflake Midnight'

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