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Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight
Mercury Rev are one of those wonderful bands who seem to be able to straddle a degree of success with making exactly the type of record that they want to, when they want and with who they want. Sure they had a spell in the 90’s after Deserter’s Songs when they were fairly successful, the album sold well and they had…whisper it…hit singles, but it’s always been on their terms.
I don’t know what it is about them but they always inspire loyalty in their fans, in a similar way to Flaming Lips they have a tremendous live reputation as well, despite their odd psychedlic twists and turns that they have thrown out over the years, people still turn out in their thousands to see this talented and enigmatic band.
If ever they were going to test that fanbase though I would wager it’s with this album, it’s one that I think will split the ‘Rev fanbase in half. While they’ve still maintained elements of their psychedelia, the overall feel of Snowflake Midnight is of lush ambience and beautiful electronica, personally I think it’s a brave move and one that has in the main paid off for me, that said though I like ambient music and I like electronica, so am I fair representative of a Mercury Rev fan?
Probably not I would guess but that shouldn’t stop a band from experimenting with their sound either way, in truth though it doesn’t feel like experimentation when it’s as finely crafted as this. Snowflake In A Hot World is the first indication that things have changed in the Mercury Rev sound, it still has a warped element to it, but it’s definitely electronica. Butterflys Wing confirms it, this time it’s gentle, pulsing electronica, with softer vocals.
The only concession to their previous sound in fact is the recent single Senses On Fire, it’s a driving rocktronica effort that has a distorted vocal, it might be enough to appease some fans, but others will see it as a misleading track if they buy on the strength of it. People Are So Unpredictable is my favourite song on the album, it’s got a beautiful yet schizophrenic character to it, flitting like a trouble mind between sounds.
- Mercury Rev
- Snowflake Midnight (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: V2 Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 06 Oct 2008
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
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Add to favouritesThose are the stand out tracks for me, after that while the rest of the album is fantastically well produced and orchestrated the tracks do blend in to each other a little more than the first half of the album, resulting in tracks like Faraway From Cars and A Squirrel And I (Holding On…And Then Letting Go) ending up as background music.
It’s a different album from them, it’s one that has monumental high points and the odd slightly non-descript track, is it one of their best? No definitely not, is it still better than most bands ever produce in a lifetime? It quite possibly could be.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.