- Label: 'Bella Union Records'
- Genre: 'Rock'
- Release Date: '2nd October 2015'
Our Rating:
It has been seven years since Mercury Rev's last album, Snowflake Midnight. This fact is acknowledged in a line from the opening track on The Light In You (The Queen of Swans): "Sometimes years go by it seems".
When asked about this lengthy hiatus, singer Jonathan Donahue says: "It was one of those otherworldly life sequences, when everything you think is solid turns molten, but also, when something is worth saying, it can take a long time to say it, rather than just blurt it out.".
Whatever the cause of the delay, the New York band's eighth album is certainly well worth the wait. Its title is a celebration of, what Donahue calls "the beacon that shines and allows us to see ourselves".
And the good news for those who already adore this band is that the record it most resembles from their back catalogue is 1998's classic Deserter's Songs. Both albums share the kind of magical mysticism and embedded emotionalism sorely lacking in more macho-orientated rock bands.
For Donahue is, it has to be said, a big softy at heart who is not afraid to sound like a wimpy man-child. "If I was a moth I'd fly to the light in you" he gushes airily on Moth Light while on Autumn's In The Air he marvels blissfully of how "The colours in the trees are now in my eyes".
On the latter song, he reflects that all this celestial communing with the gorgeousness of nature must be what it is like to be inside "Beatle George's mind". Somehow, he manages to get away with such unadorned sentimentality.
On tracks like You've Gone With So Little for So Long and Emotional Freefall you find the kind of rich orchestration that has been a common feature of the band's output over the years. Thankfully, this time around, they have resisted the temptation to go for symphonic overkill. The focus on simple, unfussy arrangements pays dividends.
Central Park East has shades of Simon & Garfunkel's 'The Only Living Boy In New York' in that feelings of isolation merge with a delight in being alone. Consolation comes in form of the "sun through the clouds". Amelie meanwhile, centres on a lover's repeated plea for forgiveness based on a promise to change old ways ("I'll break the habit this time for sure").
In contrast, Sunflower is a carefree party tune; the sound of a band reborn and proof that the group don't spend all their days in an ethereal haze.
The first single, Are You Ready? , imagines a dream girl "lost in the juke-box glow" undecided as to whether to select Psychedelic Rock or Blue-eyed Soul. This healthy dilemma is happily resolved, as it is on the album as a whole, by taking a non-confrontational middle way which smoothly embraces both genres.
The album concludes on an appropriately nostalgic note. Rainy Day Record is one for older fans and retro lovers who relish the non-digital pleasures of vinyl discs. The lyrics speak of the simple joy of holding one's breath before putting the needle into the grooves of Side Two.
Donahue says "the arc of the album, lyrically, is someone who's gone through an incredible period of turbulence, sadness and uncertainty". This is a reference to the sometimes fraught relationship between him and guitarist Sean 'Grasshopper' Mackowiak. Happily these difficult times seem to have been laid to rest.
This is an album of a band that has rediscovered the spring in its step and the lightness in their hearts. It invites the listener to do nothing more than bask in the warmth of its glow.
