Sound Advice: CD Reviews - Mercury Rev (Deserter's Songs)

CD Review:
There comes along every now and then an album from an artist (or band) that is a work of art the very instant you finish hearing it. You play the album again from sheer wonder and then again for sheer enjoyment. Deserter's Songs is one of these albums.

You can see that they have moved on from the David Baker days and created a late '90s masterpiece. This is the anti-thesis to the hard edge that rock moved to in the '90s with grunge starting the process. It continues with artists like Coldplay, Badly Drawn Boy and Travis (to name a few) making the more mellow, introspective and beautiful music mainstream and popular.

Mercury Rev cut out a niche in the music world where the experimenting with sound, using various keyboard instruments like the regular Piano and Organ, and the more eccentric Harpsichord, Mellotron and Wurlitzer (all more antique retro instruments), is used to create a gorgeous and morose release.

I prefer Donahue's voice to Baker's (who you hear on their first two CDs, Yerself Is Steam and Boces) and because of that (and, of course, the arrangement of the music) Deserter's Songs has become my favourite Mercury Rev album.

What is also exciting is that this band is not really a band at all as it is more of a group of various musicians coming together to play some amazing music. Donahue and Fridmann are part of the band The Flaming Lips and use Mercury Rev as an outlet for their other musical ambitions.

Deserter's Songs is an album that you darken the room, turn off all noise making electronic appliances and shut out all distractions before you play it. It will relax you and make for a great escape from the real world. It ranks up there with the likes of Tubular Bells, Moon Safari, Trans-Europe Express, Future Days, Parachutes, and Hot Rats as some of my more enjoyable escapes.

If the album didn't lose focus at its latter stages, before a refocus at the very end, it would deserve five stars.

Scott D. Brown