Idolator

Pity bands who can't think up a novel ways to excite fans with new releases, especially when their music hasn't been successful in doing the job itself. Don't pity Mercury Rev, though, as those godfathers of saccharine indie grandeur are planning to release two albums at the end of September. One, Snowflake Midnight (sample tracks: "Runaway Raindrop," "Dream Of A Girl As A Young Flower") will be a regular release while the other, Strange Attractor (sample tracks: "Taken Up Into Clouds, Changed And Rained Down," "Persistence And The Apis Mellifera") will be available at no charge for anyone who joins their mailing list. You may see this as a sop to the cult or a way to inspire curious types to give up their e-mail addresses, but once you've read the band's poetic waxings on the upcoming albums, such cynical considerations will slip into the ether, replaced by visions of faeries and "mandala-like forms pushed to the brink of incredible pressures then lost in an instant." More »