After a seven year absence Mercury Rev return with a new album ‘The Light In You’ released 18th September on Bella Union label. If the first taster track ‘The Queen of Swans’anything to go by it will herald a rebirth for this most imperious outfit. Tip-toeing into view on a bed of subtle sighing misty eye’d orchestration, Jonathan Donahue’s exquisite vocal falsetto tenderly aches and swoops with a sensitivity: shivering with the wistful sound of time and love running out. Before cascading into a glorious psych-pop- epic that hints at the soulfulness crescendos of Love, it’s the aural equivalent of the rise and fall a ballet(little wonder given the title), graceful and elegantly emotive.
Jonathan and Grasshopper are at the controls for the first time for this album that was produced. Perhaps reflective of this the production is perfectly pitched here, threaded with strings and unusual sounds: neither too bombastic or overwhelming, but perfectly elevating this majestic homespun beauty, it makes us eager to hear their new full length!
Live dates:
Friday 18 September – TILBURG – Incubate Festival
Sunday 4 October – LEEDS – Brudenell Social Club
Monday 5 October – BRISTOL – Trinity
Friday 6 November – COPENHAGEN – DR Studio 2
Sunday 8 November – BRUSSELS – Botanique Orangerie
Monday 9 November – KOLN – Studio 672
Wednesday 11 November – BERLIN – Postbahnhof
Friday 13 November – ZAGREB – Lauba
Saturday 14 November – RAVENNA – Bronson
Sunday 15 November – MUNICH – Kranhalle
Monday 16 November – PARIS – Alhambra
Tuesday 17 November – BRIGHTON – Komedia
Thursday 19 November – GATESHEAD – The Sage
Friday 20 November – GLASGOW – Art School
Sunday 22 November– DUBLIN – Button Factory
Monday 23 November – MANCHESTER – RNCM
Tuesday 24 November – LONDON – Oval Space
As Mercury Rev began recording their eighth studio album in autumn 2013, when asked what people could expect, co-pilot Grasshopper responded, “Steel Resonator Mandolin. Timpani. Sleigh Bells. All sorts of electric guitars…..” He subsequently added, “It is the best stuff we have done in a long, long time. Gonna be big sounding!”
Its ecstatic highs and shivery comedowns also reflect a particularly turbulent era in the lives of Grasshopper and fellow co-founder Jonathan Donahue, of calamities both personal and physical, but also rebirths and real births (Grasshopper became a father for the first time in 2014). There’s a reason for the seven-year gap since the band’s last album, Snowflake Midnight.
“It was one of those otherworldly life sequences, when everything you think is solid turns molten,” explains Jonathan. “But also, when something is worth saying, it can take a long time to say it, rather than just blurt it out.”
Yet from its title down, the album clearly reflects the core relationship between Jonathan and Grasshopper, best friends since they were teenagers, who accompanied each other through the musical changes, band fractures and exulted breakthroughs that has marked Mercury Rev’s career since they emerged with the Yerself Is Steam in 1991.
“You can go as deep as you want with the title, on a metaphorical, spiritual level, or just poetic license,” Jonathan suggests. “It’s the beacon that shines and allows us to see ourselves – and then there’s the music between Grasshopper and I, which is how we reflect each other. The arc of the album, lyrically, is someone who’s gone through an incredible period of turbulence, sadness and uncertainty, and as the album progresses, a light appears on the water.”
“Playing tracks again from Deserter’s Songs helped us look at where we’ve been, and where we were going,” says Grasshopper. “Though by no means did we want to make Deserter’s Songs Two, we did feel we had some loose ends to tie up.” As Grasshopper once commented about Deserter’s Songs, “It’s special because that was the one that brought us back from the brink.” The Light In You is special for that very same reason.
