Whilst lazying around this morning, my son started playing music on my wife’s iPhone. He’s been playing Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” rather a lot lately, but this time he led with a Mercury Rev track from 2004’s “The Secret Migration”. I’ve got to say that I was pretty disappointed with that album; far too much of the flowery white horses in the forests bollocks rather than the wondrous magicalness of “Deserter’s Songs”, or even the uneven “All Is Dream”.
Rev It Up
But this track was “In The Wilderness”, and it’s a rollicking stomper with no mention of fairy princesses. An absolute stormer; I’d completely forgotten about it and hearing the song again was a rather pleasant suprise on such a hungover day. It might get this album back on my iPhone for a bit of a reassessment…
MP3: In The Wilderness by Mercury Rev
Buy “The Secret Migration” (CD/MP3)
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Loft And Lost 
Neil Cake
/ February 15, 2010In my opinion The Secret Migration is far superior to both Deserter’s Songs and All is Dream. Like you say, the latter is uneven, but really, so is the former. There’s a lot of unlistenable musical ramblings on there. The Secret Migration however, is non-stop singalong genius. Sure, it’s a bit wet, but every tune’s a winner (more or less).
Give it another go.
loftandlost
/ February 16, 2010Superior to Deserter’s Songs? Don’t think I could agree with that, but I can certainly see it could be as good as All Is Dream. Saying that, the opener to All Is Dream is cracking – “I dreamed of you on my farm, I dreamed of you in my arms, but dreams are always wrong” is heartbreaking. I’ll definitely give The Secret Migration another try, removing that bloody white horse song.
(Caveat: Deserter’s Songs is in my top 10 best albums ever; there isn’t really much out there that’s better, in my opinion. Still, each to their own!)