September 11, 2001 by A.S. Van Dorston

It was disconcerting to hear Jonathon Donahue’s voice on Mercury Rev’s 1998 comeback, Deserter’s Songs. The clear production recalled the weedy voice of Big Bird covering Jiminy Cricket in a Fantasia gone awry. With the eerie sounds of off-kilter flutes and bowed saws, the fantastical child-like dreams revealed phantoms underneath, more like The City of Lost Children. Mercury Rev certainly had their monsters to battle, when fighting and substance abuse pretty much broke up the band in the mid-90s. After breakdowns, a stay in a monastery, and regrouping in the Catskill Mountains, the band was reborn in cinematic splendor.

For All Is Dream, they initially hired Jack Nitzsche on the strength of his work with Phil Spector, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young and particularly his soundtrack for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the original inspiration for their use of the bowed saw. Unfortunately Mr. Nitzsche died in August 2000 before production could get started. Once again, Mercury Rev were on their own. Well, not quite — T. Rex producer Tony Visconti did lend a hand on some arrangements and orchestration. The follow-up to the orchestrated Deserter’s Songs could have been over-the-top bombastic. An attempt to employ a gigantic boys choir was a sign of how overblown an affair it could have been. Perhaps in deference to what Nitzsche would have done, Mercury Rev kept things relatively modest, with the bulk of the orchestral blast concentrated on the opening track, “The Dark Is Rising.”

Donahue sounds more comfortable with his wavery voice, which is higher than ever, complementing the fragile songs with delicate titles like “Tides Of The Moon,” “Nite And Fog,” “Little Rhymes,” and “Spiders and Flies.” Not to say these songs are happy, exactly. Most involve yearning for connections they can’t have — “I hope you see your ship come in/May it find you an’ never lose it’s way/But I would make a poor captain/Nite an’ fog are my days.” Some reveal something approaching terror — “Pharoahs an’ kings…When they lived they loved complete/But in their tombs, I hear them scream.” The nightmarish apex would be “Lincoln’s Eyes (A Cruel Black Dragon Lurks)” — “What appears like an’ angel/Stabs like a dagger/Fills you with lite/An’ Bleeds you of matter.” Even the most innocent child’s dreams can sometimes be ghoulish. The dream reaches a well-earned romantic respite with “A Drop In Time” and “You’re My Queen.” Donahue summons the moonlight to play at his lover’s feet “An’ softly linger there.” He’s rewarded in the next song — “Seven times I kissed you on th’ mouth/Every nite I let you conquer me.”

“Hercules” closes the album, starting with an acoustic guitar, building to a tumultuous guitar-driven peak, and then tapering off with dwindling strings, like a lover’s lingering touch — “Drifting as you go but you row…’til it seems/All is One, All is Mind, all is lost and you find, all is dream.” Mercury Rev have consistently striven to achieve a sound that is not of its time, but of all time. While it lacks anything as forcefully engaging as “Opus 40” or “Goddess On A Highway,” All Is Dream is half a step closer to timelessness, and is a fine progression for a great American band poised for a long gliding career.

Posted in: Bandcamp, New Album(s) of the Week, Reviews