All Is Dream

Over the course of four fantastic albums, Mercury Rev have explored the endless possibilities of sound like debauched boy scouts enchanted by the paranormal, inexplicably drawn to the duality of darkness and light, good and evil, love and loss, sweet pleasure and gut-wrenching pain. In 1998, they finally garnered the recognition they always so rightly deserved, wowing the world with the space age pop of Deserter’s Songs – a record that linked contemporary experimentation and the grand tradition of American music in one seamless song-cycle.

And now, three years later, a brand new Rev long-playing record quietly slips into the late summer album release schedule practically devoid of the customary hype.

The prevalent mood is introduced in spectacular orchestral style on album opener ‘The Dark is Rising’. All Is Dream sees Donahue soundtracking his nocturnal visions of snakes, forests, spiders and flies – bringing the rural surrealness of his Catskills backyard to the stereo systems of the world. The production and arrangements are absolutely sublime. Knob twiddling legend Tony Visconti obviously made the Rev plunge even further into spooky, otherworldly beauty. They’ve pushed studio boundaries to such an unbelieveable extent that even the lush soundscape of Deserter’s Songs sounds like a lo-fi bedroom record in comparison.

‘Nite and Fog’, ‘A Drop in Time’ and ‘You’re My Queen’ are perfect bug-eyed nuggets of cosmic pop, heavily armed with hooks and choruses that are all prime candidates for future singles. The dream symphony in ten parts concludes with the seven minute epic ‘Hercules’. What begins life as a simple acoustic ballad swells into a searing space rock stomper reminiscent of the ace finale ‘Delta Bottleneck Blues’ that bookended Deserter’s Songs.

The dream is over, but the good news is for that once, this dream is very, very real. Press play and dream on…