Mercury Rev announced tour dates via the XFM website yesterday. They play London on 12th March at the Hammersmith Apollo and tickets go on sale at 9am on Wednesday 10th November.
Personally, we found the Mercury Rev live experience at Glastonbury 2002 rather dull but perhaps an indoor venue suits them better.
The latest Mercury Rev single - 'Secret For A Song' - was released on Monday, and has been receiving heavy airplay on XFM. (Mind you, when XFM decide they're going to play a song, they tend to play it to
death.)
Dedicated fans of the Mercury Rev formula will not be disappointed; dedicated fans of innovation will be. The love-it/hate-it thin, weedy timbre in the singing remains, so it would be a surprise if there were many converts to the Mercury Rev cause.
Having said that, there's no quibbles that the song is well-crafted and the melody carries itself well above the atmospheric instrumental backing. Let's just hope the single is Mercury Rev providing a gentle reintroduction of themselves before unleashing new sounds, rather than an indication of an album stuffed full of the same old, same old.
