Review Summary: Masters of the Reality Twist
It might be the very most important thing you look for in music. You may hear it in a band's work where others fail to make the same jump. It might just be the secret ingredient to undying fan loyalty. You could quite possibly be totally unaware of its very existence. It operates outside of logic, objectivity and technical concerns. What the hell could this be? Let's call it the 'reality twist'. This quality is what taps into a kind of 'sixth sense' in the listener and is the hardest element of musical enjoyment to describe; it's where people struggle and end up resorting to cop out terms like 'nostalgic', 'magical' or 'evocative'.
Music is perhaps the most intriguing of all artistic mediums in that it leaves so much open to interpretation and this is where the 'reality twist' comes into play; the music lays down a breadcrumb trail of intrigue and leaves the rest to the listener's imagination. Some artists are actively aware of the power at their disposal and go about conjuring up a new world, based in reality yes, but given a mischievous tweak of the unreal or the surreal. The effect of this is that the minute the band's work fires up a few key lyrical and musical signatures the memories will flood back and you're swept home to a familiar altered environment. It's like putting on a pair of tinted glasses; for as long as you're listening to the music your own reality will be distorted by the coloured lenses.
Mercury Rev are the band I most associate with this quality, you listen to their albums and a palette of colours form in the mind along with images of scenery and characters. It's got to the stage that since 2005's 'The Secret Migration' their lyric sheets read more like a set of clues as to how listeners should go about enveloping themselves in the album's skewed version of reality rather than presenting any sort of conventional narrative or subject matter. That album took us on a 'dark country ride' with mysterious female companions along a nature trail while on 'Snowflake Midnight' we were 'opened up by a stranger at an uncertain hour' and served to the moon. On their eighth album they ask 'am I the only lonely boy to ever walk through Central Park?', hinting that this music is best appreciated in solitude, walking alone outdoors. The timing of this release is no accident either as the world of 'The Light in You' is resolutely an autumnal 'twilight wonderland'; album highlight 'Autumn's in the Air' returns again and again to the image of the colour of the season being reflected in our faces and eyes.
This is not to say that the band restrict themselves to the role of mere landscape painters and scene setters; there are always intriguing emotional undercurrents lurking just below the surface, almost acting like subtle prompts. The shimmering beauty and euphoric tones of 'Coming up for Air' hide the depressing revelation that 'you left me in pieces' while 'You've Gone with So Little So Long' asks 'how long will they get you down?'; in each case the reaction to these dark emotions is the same, to seek out solitude and beauty. The first half of the album treads the same path as 'The Secret Migration' with beauty represented by the natural environment, however the second half throws a curveball as the source of escape becomes music; 'Are You Ready?' is an ode to the healing powers of the humble jukebox while the title of closer 'Rainy Day Record' says it all.
'The Light in You' successfully splits the difference between the cinematic wide-eyed romanticism of 'Deserter's Songs' and the nature-fixated psychedelia of 'The Secret Migration' and comes up trumps; the combination makes for very fertile ground and while the lack of classic tracks at the level of 'Holes' or 'Goddess on a Highway' mean this will never be considered their finest achievement the overall quality is such that you're left in no doubt this is a band fully aware of the magic at their fingertips. Objectivity is never easy to apply to music but when you're under the influence of the 'reality twist' it becomes near impossible; listening to this album alone, surrounded by nature and looking for signs of the season changing the music comes alive but if you're already familiar with this band's work it'll go deeper still, transporting you to a place you know so well. You may not care for Mercury Rev but perhaps they might just be the band who make you question exactly what quality it is that you seek most in music.
