All Is Dream Yellow & Green Marble Phone Case - Stylish Protective Cover for iPhone & Samsung - Perfect for Everyday Use & Gifts

In 1998 Mercury Rev suprised the music world with Deserter's Songs - it was a great album that topped the critic's polls and remained atop my CD pile. The good news is, with perseverance, All Is Dream is an even better, more cohesive record. At first listen All Is Dream did not impress me and on 'Lincoln's Eyes' even repelled me, but by about my fourth listen I was enthralled - I guess the crux of this review is that if you stick with it - the rewards are bountiful. The opener 'The Dark Is Rising' sets the tone of All Is Dream wonderfully, balancing Jonathan Donahue's piano and touchingly inadequate voice against crashing waves of orchestration in an oddly beautiful beginning. 'Chains' is a thrilling song, all purpose and urgency, while 'Nite and Fog' with it's opening couplet "If God moves across the water, then the girl moves in other ways" blows me away every time - more than once during this song has the thought struck me that the Rev are moving on a markedly different plane to other groups. There is a charming naivete to 'Little Rhymes' - it sounds a little inconsequential at first listen, but is in fact quite a moving song far greater than the sum of it's parts; likewise 'You're My Queen' with it's swooning arrangement. For me, listening to All Is Dream is rather like looking at a Dali painting - a surreal experience charged with nightmarish visions and paranoia, but also, and importantly, real beauty.