Mercury Rev: Born Horses – a lush and serene return

Early Mercury Rev songs often sounded like dreams, albeit ones that were periodically quite disturbing, but with the exit of original vocalist David Baker in the early 1990s, the upstate New York band began to rein in some of their more outre tendencies. Their first album of original material in nine years – with new members Jesse Chandler and Marion Genser now flanking the core duo of Grasshopper and Jonathan Donahue – finds them once again sounding as though they’ve been delving into their collective subconscious.
On Born Horses, though, instead of the at times abrasive guitar work and occasional disorienting structures of 1993’s brilliantly unpredictable Boces, their palette is far more consistently serene. Only once – on closing track There’s Always Been a Bird in Me – do they up the sleepy tempo. Gorgeously unhurried seven-minute opener Mood Swings sets the tone, with Donahue’s semi-spoken vocals backed by slow and wistful trumpet and stream-of-consciousness lyrics taking in “rebellious fickle teenagers”, “a child’s rocking horse” and “pill bottle spills”.
Elsewhere, animal metaphors abound – most notably horses and birds – while Patterns has a childlike sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world, with bonus wry commentary on Ireland’s weather. Throughout, the album’s lush arrangements make this a delight.