Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight

With Mercury Rev's Dave Fridmann perpetually at the mixing desk, perhaps the most surprising thing about the electronic leanings of new album, Snowflake Midnight, is that it has taken the Buffalo veterans so long to start dabbling in earnest. The bassist cum studio whiz has, after all, spent the past few years adding highly polished blips and drones to albums by everyone from MGMT to the Flaming Lips to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The band’s seventh album proper is a departure, no doubt: ten years after the reinvention that was Deserter’s Songs, this marks the third incarnation of Mercury Rev. But it’s not, as some commentators would have it, their Kid A. Snowflake Midnight explores the same wistful environments as they have done in the past, albeit using a shinier finish.

But don’t be mistaken, the shift is quite deliberate; the band’s experimental propensity has never been fully extinguished. They recognise that change is the key to longevity and after a nice but comfortable last outing in The Secret Migration, the challenge of new terrain is one the band are licking their collective lips at. Snowflake Midnight effectively rescues Mercury Rev from safety; a place a band with such a track record for shapeshifting doesn’t belong.

The gentle introductory one-two of Snowflake in a Hot World and Butterfly’s Wings set a precedent that much of the record is happy to follow; floaty, electronic expanses inhabited by disparate but rhythmic, recurring lyrics. There’s little to grab you in the openers though, even the introduction of a 4/4 drumbeat on the former doesn’t raise it from its languidness. It’s not until the third, Senses On Fire, that we’re treated to a concrete melody. It’s a joyous release of a song and the sound of a band rejuvenated – slipping into something new and finding it fits just fine.

Elsewhere, Donahue’s childlike vocal on People Are Unpredictable perfectly compliments the Dorothy in Oz mantra “there’s no place like home”, which in turn rides on a gently swirling tornado of glitch pop. Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower is a sumptuous slice of euphoria. A more intensely percussive offering, it could have found a home on Orbital’s early 90’s Green Album such is blissful Balearic quality.

Some of the tracks, however, are bereft of such splendour. The darker Runaway Raindrop is borderline ugly; its Nintendo chic groove broken by an out of place spoken word interlude. Faraway From Cars explores identical territory as its sister track, to be found on Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, though doesn’t pack half the punch. But for the most part, Snowflake Midnight is a rewarding  listen. Mercury Rev may never recapture the form of a decade ago, but this change in tack proves they’re not ready to settle just yet, which is good news for all concerned. [Finbarr Bermingham]