Mercury Rev - The Essential Mercury Rev, Stillness Breathes Album Review

Mercury Rev
The Essential Mercury Rev, Stillness Breathes
Album Review

With 15 years worth of material this best of collection displays the ever evolving direction of the band from past to present. From grungy rock to your more typical indie offerings the Mercury Rev back catalogue has a wonderfully timeless quality making their early output almost inseparable from later work.

This release features a mammoth 32 songs across 2 cd’s. Disc 1 concentrates on listing Mercury Rev’s best work, displaying their beautifully orchestrated cinematic layers and trademark feedback drenched sound, whilst disc 2 peeks into a collection of B-sides and bold covers which includes James Brown's "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" David Bowie's "Memory of a Free Festival" and a Chemical Brothers remix of “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp” among other interesting cuts.

For both hardcore fans and newcomers alike The Essential Mercury Rev (as the title so glaringly suggests) is indeed pretty essential listening.

Colin Burrill