KEY POINTS:
Rating: * * *
Verdict: Good and bad trips on dreamy rockers' seventh album.
Once upon a time, taking a trip with Mercury Rev was like a psychedelic, carefree jaunt down the rabbit hole, or on Deserter's Songs, the band's big breakthrough in 1998, the mole hole. Remember, "Holes, dug by little moles"?
Nowadays the band sound a little more contrived and as if they're taking us on a guided tour - albeit a chaotic and rowdy one.
On Snowflake Midnight songs like Senses On Fire have the same noisy attitude of their excellent 1991 debut, Yerself Is Steam. But Snowflake often lacks listenability and cohesion.
People Are So Unpredictable is demented, with its fruity, rumbling cacophony of percussion, but disintegrates into a pointless mess. There's more waffly moments of static, synth sound-scapes and the break beat outbursts on Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower sound confused.
Still Mercury Rev remain an uncompromising and dreamy band and Runaway Raindrop - a meeting of Mercury Rev and Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails - is a delight.
Also of note, on the same day Snowflake was released the band made an 11-track instrumental "companion" album Strange Attractor available for free download on their website.
Scott Kara
