Mercury Rev – Snowflake Midnight

I’m probably not the only one approaching this latest album by Mercury Rev with a certain trepidation. After releasing Deserter’s Songs in 1998, one of the most beautiful records ever made, Mercury Rev have still churned out some gorgeous songs but the overall impression left by albums like Secret Migration and All is Dream is of a band playing it safe and becoming a cleaned up, stadium rock friendly version of their former self.

Snowflake Midnight more or less carries on in the vein of the other post-Deserter’s Songs albums. The sound is full and rich, the vocals are confident and the overall feel is of a band at the top of their game. The only downside to this is the fragility and vulnerability of their earlier work, the slight cracking in Jonathan’s vocals during ‘Holes’ for example, has been totally left behind.

Even during the song ‘People are so Unpredictable’ (which lyrically would seem to be showing the showing the more fragile side to Mercury Rev), the musical bombast – all programmed drums, fast piano arpeggios and electric guitars – drowns out any vulnerability that might earlier have been on display.

Is this a bad thing? For those of us without tattoos of stars on our forearms, do we need our bands to deal in vulnerability and fragility? You could easily argue that we don’t, and that by taking a more outgoing and less introverted direction that Mercury Rev are a different proposition but not a worse one.

And yet… there was something about Deserter’s Songs in particular that set them so far apart from the crowd and from any other band making music. Jonathan still gave the impression of being a reluctant singer, remember his original role in Mercury Rev was as second guitarist, and his voice sounded quite unlike any other singer at the time. He has clearly grown in technical ability and confidence since, but at the expense of sounding more homogenised.

Lyrically Mercury Rev are still ploughing the same sort of furrow as always, references to ‘dreams’, ‘awake’, ‘girl’ and so forth abound. However a lot of the quirks and kinks of the lyrics seems to have been ironed out, leaving ‘Life is uncertain / And people are so unpredictable’ or ‘Runaway raindrop / Why so many tears?’ in their place. Certainly far more straightforward than ‘holes, dug by little moles / jealous little spies, got telephones for eyes’ but whereas the lyrics to ‘Holes’ felt like they could only belong to Mercury Rev, Snowflake Midnight’s lyrics do feel at times rather generic.

There are a great many positive things to commend and recommend this album for. It often hits musical crescendos where the pulsing programmed elements and the more organic sounds pull together and fill the room with sound; ‘Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower’ certainly does this very successfully and becomes the standout track as a result.

This is by no means a bad album - if you liked The Secret Migration you will know what to expect and you will enjoy Snowflake Midnight. But, if you liked Mercury Rev from 10 years ago, the very fact that you will know what to expect from this record will be a disappointment.

Tracklisting:

1. Snowflake In A Hot World

2. Butterfly’s Wing

3. Senses On Fire

4. People Are So Unpredictable (There’s No Bliss Like Home)

5. October Sunshine

6. Runaway Raindrop

7. Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower

8. Faraway From Cars

9. Squirrel And I (Holding On And Then Letting Go)