Mercury Rev
Snowflake Midnight

Cherubs in latex suits prancing among cotton candy clouds. Such is the extremely annoying image that immediately crept into my head during the listening of this latest work by Mercury Rev. Or that of a car accident between the Beach Boys of "Pet Sounds" and the electronic Radiohead, caused by the failure to stop by Talk Talk.

Whether it's experimentation or stylistic research, the ultimate destination of Dellahue and company is a hybridization with electronic sounds, the eighties synthetic nature inserted into the dream-pop framework of the latest disappointing efforts. If you're coming from the listening of the first two lysergic works, or the fantastic "Deserter's Songs", the approach to this "Snowflake Midnight" (the first of two complementary albums, the next should be out in October) might be characterized by total disgust or unconscious rejection of what is proposed to you upon listening.

At first glance, the first two tracks seem to be uninspired melodic sketches framed on glam-pop structures, with electronic beats and many angelic choruses drowned in a sea of synths. "Senses On Fire" quickens the pace, but it’s only a brief moment and the electronics continue to dominate.

Shortly thereafter, however, one reaches the apex of the work, and is placed before a desert of desolation, a moment of atmospheric suspension made of keyboard carpets creating a heartacheingly dreamy climax; and here comes the slap to the listener, guilty of having sought in the record the projection of their own expectations in the desired artistic direction.

And one realizes they are dealing with an unpredictable musical creature totally alien to the contemporary scene, what the Rev strongly pursued with "Deserter": a detachment from reality, a refuge for the mind in the tangle of the unconscious, among the vague uncertainty of dreams. Those instruments and that voice suddenly lose concreteness and connection (also of judgment) with the real, softly caressing and atrophying your perceptions.

Choruses, synths, keyboards, and electronic beats enhance this sense of sensory abstraction, traveling the spectrum of emotions from joviality to disquiet ("Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower") moving through melodic openings and syncopated rhythms, often contrasting with the atmospheres of the singing, but perfectly and coherently embedded in the whole.

"Faraway From Cars" underlines right from the title this split with the fast and inhuman world surrounding us, with a quick hand clap and atmospheres that become increasingly distant and melancholic, only to get lost and then find themselves again when the beat resurfaces.

The last turning point is illuminated by a synth imitating a baby's cry, or a baby imitating a synth: abstraction as the best way to talk about reality, which expresses itself completely and opens the doors of our sensitivity when wisely suspended in the indefinable of which we are truly made.

The sky to talk about the earth, sleep to talk about wakefulness. And after the album has ended (too soon) there are various reasons to want to await the second chapter.

Welcome back Mercury Rev.