Mercury Rev – Deserter's Songs (1998)

Mercury Rev is one of the 90's alternative bands that must have influenced the whole generation of indie bands coming after them. They combine beautiful and dream-like melodies with lo-fi aesthetics and a variety of interesting instruments, most notably musical saw. Deserter's Songs is the band's most critically acclaimed album and also commercially it was the most successful album at least upon its release. It's interesting that the band intended actually to make an album that would just sound a lot like they wanted it to sound without any consideration for commercial aspects. Their previous album had been something of a breakthrough, but they had to compromise on the sounds and now they were just doing what they wanted. Of course, that resulted in their best album so far and many would say it's still the best album of their career.



This album combines rock and pop sound to classical instruments, which makes me think of The Moody Blues' Days of the Future Passed. The most notable musical feature is the musical saw that hums in the background in many of the songs. It makes the sounds quite magical. Jonathan Donahue's high and fragile vocals also sound quite amazing with the classical accompaniments. The whole album has a dream-like atmosphere. It's like a soundtrack to a slightly psychedelic fairytale.

The same producer that worked on this album, also worked on The Flaming Lips' breakthrough album Soft Bulletin' at the same time. There's a certain type of symbiosis between the two albums and I can definitely see the similarities between them. The funny thing is that while Mercury Rev was the most popular band of the two at the time, I only heard of them a lot later than The Flaming Lips who zoomed into huge popularity with their couple of subsequent albums.

The album starts with beautiful airy synth sounds in the song Holes. When the vocals come in, there's an instant rush of shivers in my spine. The song keeps growing subtly until finally it explodes into blissful psychedelic bliss of musical saw and classical instruments. Tonite It Shows tones the mood down again to quiet and fantasy-like world with harps and strings. Endlessly isn't quite as strong from the perspective of songwriting as the previous two albums, but it's a great showcase for the musical saw. There are lots of instrumentations that sound like psychedelic rock of the 60's in this song. I Collect Coins is even more of a retro song with vinyl scratching sounds and a toy piano. It's just an instrumental intermission song though that leads to the next song Opus 40. This song has nice baroque pop groove with psychedelic undertones. Hudson Line sounds very different from the other songs on this album, probably because it has a different vocalist. Also, this song has some louder electric guitars. The Happy End (The Drunk Room) is a completely psychedelic lo-fi mess of strange sounds and instruments. It's not much of a song on its own, but it makes the album more magical as a whole. Goddess On a Hiway is one of the best songs Mercury Rev has ever made. The endearing fairytale melodies of the verses changes into full-on dream explosion in the choruses. The melody is simple but amazingly beautiful. The Funny Bird goes almost jazzy in places with amazing flute playing over distorted vocals. Pick You Up If You're There is a strange psychedelic journey with interesting synth and keyboard sounds. In the true 90s fashion, the album ends with a hidden track Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp, which is probably the most upbeat song on the whole album, although the sounds are a bit off-key which makes it less commercial and more just bizarre.

Mercury Rev has some absolutely beautiful music videos. The video for Holes features multicoloured balloons flying into air from buildings filling the streets of old-timey Paris. The sunny weather makes the city look remarkably magical. The psychedelic dream pop makes the whole audiovisual experience phenomenal. The filmography in the video is gorgeous. The video ends with all the balloons flying towards a boy in a suit who has a broken balloon. The boy is ecstatic about all the balloons and finally he flies over the rooftops of Paris with the balloons.

Mercury Rev is quite an underrated band. I mean, not many people remember them these days. They're rarely mentioned on best albums lists and they don't play arena gigs. Still, I think they have made some of the greatest albums at the turn of the millennium. Deserter's Songs especially is a wonderfully unique album that deserves to be remembered by future generations.

Listen to the album on Spotify.