Mercury Rev - Secret Migration (2005)

Mercury Rev are glorious. As you may recall, it was my brother who lured me into their music, capturing me with their sound much as you would capture a mouse with peanut butter. The melodies, the liveliness, the sheer effervescence of their music... it is a delight to behold and absolute divine aural pleasure.

If you wish to know more about Mercury Rev, Pandora Radio has a nifty entry.

This album was purchased on a trip to Wellington. I had been informed of its impending release, which coincided with our vacation. Therefore I skipped out of the convention I was attending, racing down the hill in eager anticipation. I think this is the first time I've ever bought a cd on the day of its release and held it in my (slightly shaking) hands. I couldn't even listen to it - since I hadn't a portable cd player. But it was mine and it was beautiful and it was enough, for a time, to simply hold it in my hands and admire it.

The album cover is a thing of beauty. In perfect pastel lilac hues - delicate and fragile, like their sound. A moth, tawny wings spread to reveal eyes and a woman's face upon its thorax. Inside the dreamy, surreal, otherworldly feel continues with gorgeous lavendar shades: swans, clouds. It is all very dreamlike and ethereal, entrancing.

Of course, the instant I slipped it into the CD player I fell forever, unrepentedly, in love.

The dreamlike, haunting "Secret for a Song" entrances with its gentle piano, fleetingly beautiful vocals - as clear and as sweet and as innocent as a childhood kiss. Glorious enough to bring a tear to your eye and reach deep down into your soul and give it a gentle, loving, squeeze.

"I'll tell you a secret, I'll sell you a secret for a song..."

 Beautiful, melancholic, entrancing; now we delve "Into Yer Ocean". The lyrics are pure poetry, the light, lilting rhythms enhance and transform the music into thousands of delicate crystals, tinkling like stars above the gentle rise and fall of waves.

Tinkling like tiny stars, we have "Diamonds" with more evocative poetry:

"...like a bracelet hung, from a spider's web..."

Sweet, delicate, sensitive.

Piano and strings delicately dance around Jonathan's wonderful voice as he leads us through "Black Forest (Lorrelei)". Haunting, fairytale lyrics and a sense of longing and loneliness with a hint of helplessness.

"There's no way 'round the forest, the only way is through. And there's no way I'd make it without you..."

Their lyrics are so rich, so beautiful, so dream-like and whimsical that I cannot resist quoting them.

"Slow, rich, glorious velvet "Vermillion" is as smooth as a caress.

The glorious "In the Wilderness" is a love song. Vocal-centric, sweet, innocent, romantic and beautiful.

And Mercury Rev score mad bonus points for the line:

"How could I have been blind for so long
and how could the woman I love be so strong"

'Cos how many musicians would have used the rhyme "wrong" instead?
Also:

"...Take her by surprise, not by force..."

This song is like being enfolded in the arms of your beloved and lain down on the verdant grass in a glorious woodland where the trees are wearing their autumn suits.

Haunting melodies, echoing and spectral as the flutes and strings entwine "In a Funny Way". But it's not funny, it's beautiful, vibrant and playful love song. Fleeting, ethereal, ephemeral.
(The video is delightful and slightly creepy - you should totally watch it).

Hell, I need a thesaurus to write these reviews!

It's like being swept up into the clouds and sung to by angels.

Another beauty, "My Love" is the sort of melody that cannot help but stir your soul. The lyrics are filled with heartbreak and regret:

"... I never gave you enough, I could have given you my love..."

A lament of letting the one you love slide through your fingers, of not giving all that you should to someone who deserved it. Such a simple thing - love - but it means so much.

"Moving On" is short, choral and flavoured with crystal raindrops.

"The Climbing Rose" is another song of transcendent glory.The lyrics are repetitive, but poetic.

The drums erupt with vibrant energy as your spirit will "Arise" into clarity and poetry.

For a song called "First Time Mother's Joy (Flying)", this is a bittersweet symphony, the piano adding an edge of melancholy.

"...Soon the dormant patient roots will show themselves as childish shoots..."

Their lyrics are so gosh darned beautiful.

Concluding with the melancholic, the sorrowful, the heartfelt "Down Poured the Heavens" when Jonathan's voice almost cracks with the emotional overload.

Mercury Rev are, quite possibly, one of the most evocative and stunningly beautiful bands in the world. I cannot understand why they are not better appreciated, or more well known. There is noone that comes even close in terms of clarity and whimsical charm. Their songs are poetry to music, their arrangements pure magic and Jonathan's voice has an otherworld quality that makes you wonder how he can possibly be human (I think he's fae). After this album and the previous, it seems so impossible to possibly top them, that Mercury Rev released an album of entirely different stylings and sound. Still, whether they return to this sound or not, they have left us with two magnificant albums. The mood for this one is generally gentler, more melancholic, filled with longing and loss, compared with the playful innocence of (some of)"All is Dream".

And what will I rate this one? Yeh, you guessed it = 10/10.

Mercury Rev - All is Dream (2001)

My brother introduced me to this band (well, their music, I've never met them - alas). He is responsible for some of the stranger albums in my collection (most of which I haven't got to yet) as he sees it fit to educate me on non-metal genres. And occasionally metal genres as well.

This is probably my favourite album this century (although "Secret Migration" is also magnificant). I ADORE Mercury Rev's middle albums (not so much the older or the newer ones, however). Their delicate combination of vocals and instruments, the evocative, playful nature of the music... Not to forget Jonathan's beautiful voice. There's just something so joyous, so rousing, so alive about this album.

I have no idea how to classify them. According to Wikipedia, they're "dream pop" and similar to Flaming Lips. These guys are far better, however. Not that I've really heard much Flaming Lips.

The album cover is beautiful - a psychadelic array of colour - a whimsical acrylic painting that is utterly over-complex. To complicate matters, the lyric sheet is out of order, but I'm going to conclude that mine was merely assembled incorrectly. As was my brother's. Hrmmm.

We begin with the stirring "Dark is Rising", a song that lights a chord in my heart and makes my spirit soar. With its melancholic bridges, and soaring choruses, it is haunting and magnificant and just damned beautiful.

Following it is the gentler "Tides of the Moon". A sweet and sensitive song.

"Chains" starts with piano and a bit of a rock beat. Jonathan's voice is sweet - and he would be the first non-female vocalist I would label as sounding "ethereal".

The ghostly "Lincoln's Eyes" sends shivers down my spine. With lyrics like:

"... fragile as a seahorse..."

This song actually feels quite fragile, ephermeral, like wisps floating in the air. Actually, now that I'm actually reading the lyrics - they're really very random and weird:

"... covets like a dragon, grows to a shark length contracts to amoeba lives in your soul an' loves you like I do..."

I'm not sure what it means, but I love it.

"Nite and Fog" is a simpler song, which, because this is Mercury Rev, means not very simple at all.  It has a bit more of a beat to it, a little faster pace. The instruments seem to speak.

Now, looking at the lyrics to "Little Rhymes" I wonder is that a typo? "Staighre... to nowhere climb..." I'm pretty sure it's "stairs" right? No wait, it's a type of folding attic stair - haha, I just learned a new word. That'll be useful in Quiddler. It sounds sweet, but the lyrics are tinged with a hint of the sinister and sad. Like a lonely child, huddled in the attic, making little rhymes and taking pills to try and forget the harshness of the world outside.

My favourite song is the wonderful "A Drop in Time". I love the playful nature of the music, the way it flits and flickers like a hummingbird darting on the air. It skips and dances in my ears and sets my soul to fly with the instruments. The lyrics are kind of romantic too. I could listen to this song all day. Maybe I shall (I'm already playing it for the second today). What's with

"... a fleeting thought caught inside of Leonard Cohen's mind..."?

I think my favourite bit is the twiddly bit with the birds. Especially as I've been drawing hummingbirds today.

"You're My Queen" is another sweet, sensitive number. A song with few lyrics, but a good rhythm and a great chorus - every woman should be told that she is someone's Queen.

 "Spiders and Flies" is a cute little song, with lots of piano.

We conclude with "Hercules", a strong finale that starts soft and gentle but soars and expands in power and majesty.

For its atmosphere, its poetic nature, its vibrant music and beautiful vocals, I shall rate this CD 10/10.