Deserter's Songs

Spin - 8 (out of 10) - "...It's an album of shameless good-byes: to Manhattan, to love, and (most painfully) to not giving a shit. Successfully repressing his Sonic Youth tics, Donahue starts with goofy, SMILE-era Beach Boys and heaps on even thicker strata of strings and brass than SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE..." The Wire - Included in Wire's "50 Records Of The Year [1998]" Entertainment Weekly - "...their fourth effort feels like a watershed, the point where their heady mix of orchestral pop, roots rock, psychedlia, prog, choral, and chamber music finally crystallizes into something special and damn near ineffable..." - Rating: A- Q - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." Entertainment Weekly - "...their fourth effort feels like a watershed, the point where their heady mix of orchestral pop, roots rock, psychedlia, prog, choral, and chamber music finally crystallizes into something special and damn near ineffable..." - Rating: A- Spin - 8 (out of 10) - "...It's an album of shameless good-byes: to Manhattan, to love, and (most painfully) to not giving a shit. Successfully repressing his Sonic Youth tics, Donahue starts with goofy, SMILE-era Beach Boys and heaps on even thicker strata of strings and brass than SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE..." Q - Ranked #30 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime" Mojo - Ranked #30 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "The results were rhapsodic: bowed saw symphonies and the ineffable 'Holes', a fantastical elegy to magic and loss." Q (10/01, p.59) - Ranked #30 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime" Q (12/99, p.100) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." The Wire (1/99, p.27) - Included in Wire's "50 Records Of The Year [1998]" Spin (12/98, pp.184-185) - 8 (out of 10) - "...It's an album of shameless good-byes: to Manhattan, to love, and (most painfully) to not giving a shit. Successfully repressing his Sonic Youth tics, Donahue starts with goofy, SMILE-era Beach Boys and heaps on even thicker strata of strings and brass than SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE..." Entertainment Weekly (9/25/98, p.107) - "...their fourth effort feels like a watershed, the point where their heady mix of orchestral pop, roots rock, psychedelia, prog, choral, and chamber music finally crystallizes into something special and damn near ineffable..." - Rating: A- NME - 'DESERTER'S SONGS is a magnificent, ambitious and astonishing record.' The Independent - 'Justice demands a wider audience for what is quite simply a masterpiece.'

A touching, majestic gem of a record, DESERTER'S SONGS raises the bar not just for Mercury Rev themselves, but orchestrated pop in general. There's a timelessness to both the compositions and the arrangements here. Grand sonic visions are realised with horns, keyboards, strings, even a bowed saw! No matter how big the sound gets, though, it's all carefully controlled, and the cinematic scope enhances the songs, rather than obscuring them. Simple--but never blunt--lyrics benefit from an infectious melodicism that speaks to the pop songcraft skills Mercury Rev has mastered. The sweeping scale of DESERTER'S SONGS never denies the small, intimate pleasures that pop up from song to song, as the band combines psychedelia, '60s pop, Flaming Lips-ish indie rock and a homey folk-rock sound (the Band's Garth Hudson and Levon Helm even appear here) for a masterpiece of epic proportions.|