El Guevo

Beautiful review...I recently got Intolerance by Hart, a great album made right after the breakup of Husker Du...too bad he got lost along the way.

Yes, of course I exaggerated, it was just to emphasize the historical importance of the FL in relation to the MR, which is often underestimated or ignored... of course, if someone doesn't know them, they miss out on both the FL and the MR. They are two bands that I really like, although I have to say that the latest MR have greatly disappointed me, unlike the FL. It's a matter of taste.

I wasn't the one to compare the two groups and start making comparisons. The groups are similar because the mind behind Mercury Rev was a guitarist in the Flaming Lips, and you can tell that he brought his experience to the Buffalo group. Not to mention Freedman—Coldplay and the Rolling Stones are different, the 13th Floor Elevators and the Pogues are different. These, however, are not different as you say; they are similar. But the Flaming Lips always come before Mercury Rev—that's a fact acknowledged by the individual members of the Buffalo band. They know each other, they're friends, and they try to direct their musical identity down the same path. Let's say the leader of this sound anarchy is Wayne Coyne, and the others are disciples.

I agree that "Car Wash Hair" is a beautiful song, but to say that Mercury Rev have improved over time unlike the Flaming Lips seems to me a real heresy. The latest albums by Mercury Rev exhibit an exemplary dullness and banality compared to the originality of their early works; the descent into easy listening began with the acclaimed "Deserter's Song" (which was still good). The Flaming Lips have always maintained a very high quality level, while Mercury Rev have gradually moved further away from the mainstream. While their early albums featured less original sounds (as other bands of the time had similar qualities... Mercury Rev came much later...), they had the strangeness and the implicit genius in the lyrics. But album after album, the sound has slowly transformed through experiments bordering on the impossible (see Zaireeka or the concert with cars), creating an utterly new sound that is still evolving (a sound that Mercury Rev owe to two old friends of Wayne), and they have done all this without ever abandoning the song format, as demonstrated by the masterpiece "The Soft Bulletin" and still "Yoshimi." I'm a longtime fan of the Flaming Lips; I still remember discussing this topic on this site, and I was quite surprised that when I mentioned an album like "Telepathic Surgery" (Mercury Rev have never reached these levels), no one knew it. In short, what I mean is that if someone doesn't know the albums by Mercury Rev, they don't miss anything if they are well acquainted with those of the Flaming Lips.

Yes, indeed these two EPs are exceptional.

It is said that it should be released for winter, so November.

And then the cover is fantastic; I rate it as the best of the year.

Yes, we had already talked about Cold Roses, for me an excellent album just like this one. Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun; traditional music played and sung to perfection. Then again, it depends on the individual. As far as I’m concerned, the atmospheres that Adams manages to create completely fascinate me. I love how he writes and I consider him the ideal continuation of the music I love most, the kind that comes directly from Hank Williams and passes through Gram Parsons, and all those country records for which I am a true maniac.

The more I listen, the more I like it.

His first solo album is Heartbreaker, performed with Ethan Jones, David Rawlings, and Gillian Welch. Gold is his second album, the one that made him known worldwide thanks to critical acclaim. His debut was with Faithless Street (1995) under the name Whiskeytown.