Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight (Universal)
3/5
By: Matt Tomiak
BUY DOWNLOADSometimes it's possible to gain a clearer perspective by describing what something isn't rather than what it actually is. And Snowflake Midnight most assuredly isn't just another Mercury Rev-by-numbers record.
The trippy track names and singer Jonathan Donahue's spectral vocals remain firmly intact, but sedate pacing (nine tracks spread languorously across three quarters of an hour) and a sense of ambient experimentalism set it squarely apart from the New York State natives' past work.
The glistening, euphoric electro-funk of 'Senses of Fire' brings to mind LCD Soundsystem, whilst the hallucinatory "Runaway Raindrop" feels like a cut from U2's mid-career jumpstart LP 'Zooropa.' The album's fulcrum, meanwhile, is an unsettling, seven minute Pink Floydian epic entitled 'People Are So Unpredictable.'
A bold departure, then, from the stargazing neo-psychedelia of Deserters' Songs with which they made their name a decade ago, but 'Snowflake Midnight' provides evidence of Mercury Rev in fine fettle.
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