Classic Rock Music : Snowflake Midnight

Snowflake Midnight

£6.98

  1. Snowflake In A Hot World
  2. Butterfly s Wing
  3. Senses On Fire
  4. People Are So Unpredictable (There s No Bliss Like Home)
  5. October Sunshine
  6. Runaway Raindrop
  7. Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower
  8. Faraway From Cars
  9. Squirrel And I (Holding On And Then Letting Go)

Seven albums in, and Mercury Rev are again on the move. Snowflake Midnight finds New York’s veteran sonic explorers downing the tools that resulted in 2005’s disappointing The Secret Migration and discovering a whole new, largely electronic palette: computers and synthesisers, sequencers and vocoders. Which isn’t to say the Rev have entirely abandoned their familiar brand of heady, cosmic Americana: as Snowflake in a Hot World gusts into life on Jonathon Donohue’s optimistic, star-gazing croon, it’s clear that the themes that have long driven this band--nature and mysticism, magic and dreams--remain intact. Now, though, electronics are woven deep in their design. Often it s successful--take the gorgeous Runaway Raindrop, shimmering electronic minimalism that recalls electronic Krautrock godheads Cluster. Elsewhere, somewhat meandering: see the overblown, seven-minute Dream of Young Girl As a Flower, which veers unsteadily between serene drift and pounding electronica like Donohue and Grasshopper are still trying to master the instruction manual. But while it might not be a reinvention quite as stark as their panoramic, career-defining 1998 album Deserter s Songs, evolution is preferable to inertia, and seven albums in Mercury Rev are still mutating, following their muse like leaves tossed on the wind. --Louis Pattison

. - Wow, some people have given this 5 stars! Well, let me say, I m quite pleased about that, though I won t be joining them. The crux of the matter is that for me, this record is far too ambient.You have to applaud the band s ambition - they ve left their orchestral epic period behind, and started exploring new territory, this time it s electronic and techno sounds - unfortunately though, I don t find this album stimulating in any way. It sounds very pieced together, very inorganic, and it lacks the elements of previous records that I liked. I know The Secret Migration got a panning by and large, but that one actually became my favourite Mercury Rev album - [hear me out...] it was a masterpiece in songwriting, damn near every tune invites you to sing along. On Snowflake Midnight, any time you think you hear a part that you can one day see yourself singing along to, the music pauses... and then changes completely - usually into non-descript ambience, and then holds that idea for... well, way too long. One thing you can say for it though: it sure is unpredictable.Upon hearing this record I was the first to say that you can never fully appreciate a Mercury Rev album on the first listen (I hated The Secret Migration at first), but this one hasn t grown on me, and so I ve decided my current judgement is the one I m going to enter for posterity.

amazing - i loved this album. from the first listen i was transported to another world and gladly let rev take the reins.i would suggest listening on an ipod as the music is definately better with full focus not just background noise. mercury rev are a band with an individual sound, fantastic!

Ice and Fire - Further adventures from a small bright planet.Mr Donahue and cohorts create an extraordinarily lush and vividsoundworld for us with their new release Snowflake Midnight .These nine sumptuous tracks are almost overwhelming in theirmultilayered, scintillating, numinous complexity.Structurally and melodically epic in scope, the densely constructed thematic and rhythmic waves at times threaten to overwhelm us.I am just wholly willing to drown however in music of this imaginative scope, originality and quality.Opening track Snowflake In A Hot World drives along at a furious pace.Piano, percussion and hard edged guitar supporting the disembodied high floating vocal. Butterfly s Wing is a curiously lilting patchwork quilt of beatbox, crashing keyboard chordsand hauntingly disembodied childrens voices. A magic garden of sound. Sense On Fire , with its slowly building rhythmic pulse and cataclysmic resolutionis a simple and single-minded idea followed through with uncompromising clarity of vision. People Are So Unpredictable takes us into almost ambient territory with its delicate tapestry of shifting synth chords. All ice and fire.The brief instrumental October Sunshine is simply sublime. Runnaway Raindrop , Faraway From Cars (with its ecstatic handclapping) and the quirky A Squirrel and I ( Holding On....and Then Letting Go ) all engage our attention, imaginationand admiration.The glorious Dream Of A young Girl As A Flower is, however, the blooming heart ofthis truly wonderful album. An epic composition in every sense. So many ideas jostlingfor attention without ever losing focus or coherence for a moment.Challenging. Uplifting. Thrilling. A Quite Magnificent Achievement.Essential.

Yet more great stuff from the Revsters. - More superb sounds, songs, ideas, production and loveliness from a superb band. I can t say that this is better than their last album - which also got mixed reviews but IMO is an astounding and amazing record - but comparing the two is a bit like asking which is the more beautiful, the night sky or sunrise?

Definitely a Grower - The negative reviews elsewhere strike me as misguided. This album unfolds like a book, taking you through textures and sounds. The usual elliptical lyrics drop in and out and it manages the odd echo of the previous trio of their albums without ever sounding like a copy. It s certainly demanding and doesn t lend itself easily to being background music. But it does have the capacity to keep surprising you. I don t know how many times I d been through it before the bizarre drumming and the strange elements that make up Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower finally struck me. That track is like an exercise in throwing everything that shouldn t be in one song together and still coming up with a beautiful and strange concoction. If Mercury Rev came your way because you took Deserters Songs as a great piece of Americana, avoid this. If you see them as fearless sonic pioneers with a love of psychedelia and pushing the envelope on strange sounds, definitely investigate this.




Snowflake Midnight