872. Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs (1998)

Track Listing

1. Holes
2. Tonite It Shows
3. Endlessly
4. I Collect Coins
5. Opus 40
6. Hudson Line
7. The Happy End (The Drunk Room)
8. Goddess On A Hiway
9. The Funny Bird
10. Pick Up If You're There
11. Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp

Review

It starts off sounding like a lost album by Neil Young, then you come to the conclusion that it is the lost Neil Young Album IN SPACE! Once you get over the Neil Young comparisons you can start to appreciate it for itself.

The comparisons stop mainly at the voice, the composition draws heavily from Psychedelia and updates it for the late 90s, fortunately managing to sound quite timeless in the process.

This timelessness is the great strength of the album, that and the fact that some of the tracks are truly beautiful pieces, the arrangements are lush and complex, the album rewards repeated listenings but it is very hard not to like it from the start.

Track Highlights

1. Opus 40
2. Holes
3. Helpless
4. The Funny Bird


Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The success of this album was a pleasant surprise for the band. After the commercial failure of See You on the Other Side, which Donahue considered to be the band's best album, they decided to make one more record entirely for themselves, ignoring commercial influences, and expecting to split up shortly afterward. Surprisingly, Deserter's Songs was their most successful album, and made them big celebrities in the UK and Europe, also making a smaller mark in the US.

Opus 40: