josi_

It's worth mentioning that I was 5 years old when the FL were formed... :D Happy Zaireeka!

Two typos in my previous comment: "I will prefer" and not "he will prefer"; in the last sentence, there's an extra "not" between "in short" and "I believe" :) bye

Nice review, and I completely agree with it; especially the concluding sentence. The gradual slide towards pop (in the sense of "ease," if that's the right term) has been evident since "Deserter's Songs." Yet, Mercury Rev's style keeps it all very solid. I don't know which one I'll prefer in the long run between this and "All Is Dream." Regarding the Flaming Lips: unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to listen to "Zaireeka," and I've heard too little of the other albums from their early phase to compare them to MR's "Yerself...". In all of this, I would like to mention Dave Fridmann again. I don't know how much of the fairy-tale quality in MR's recent works can be attributed to them flattening out to his style and how much is just a simple "correspondence" between the two parties. After all, Dave has been present in MR since the first album. And Sparklehorse, in "It's A Wonderful Life," is not at all flattened out by Dave's style (Linkous is also a producer and has a certain personality...); you've already mentioned the FL. In short, I don't think that Fridmann's touch is too intrusive overall, yes, but it's not so "dominant." Regards.

The good josi_ copies the album for you and sends it to you. Only that the good josi_ is slower than the Patient Englishman and has dozens of CD creditors, so if you're lucky, it'll arrive in 2006 :D

No, send me an mpeg where you play three fast guitar chords and sing a bit off-key and inka. But naked, okay?

Between review and debate, one would need to select everything, press ctrl+C, open Word, press ctrl+V, and save it in the 'Important Documents' folder.

Here she is, good zaireeka :) shall we continue here?

Asband!!! :) A toast to Asband!!!

thank you zaireeka, after all a balanced discussion needs two :) I guess in the end we have more or less the same idea, with the difference that I wasn't expecting the stars (the recent path of the MR was clear) and so maybe I’m being more "gentle" with this album. Secret For A Song is a huge success, while The Climbing Rose and Arise to me take away some of the album's flatness and wouldn’t be out of place in "Deserter's Songs". You prefer the Flaming Lips, right? I, in this 'dreamy' fade, prefer the MR (more 'sonic' - I like this term oh, I don’t know why, anyway it has nothing to do with Youth obviously); while in the previous, psychedelic phase, I can’t say because I've really listened to very little of the FL: but I don't know how many chances they have... "Yerself Is Steam" is hard to surpass! :) Cheers

But where did those gaggi come from behind the couch?