Mercury Rev

Mercury Rev

Snowflake Midnight

(V2 Music)

Snowflake Midnight marks another remarkable reinvention for Mercury Rev, a decade on from the landmark Deserter's Songs, the record that sent them from indie obscurity to transatlantic recognition.

This time the shift is similar to that taken by the Flaming Lips on their 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Yet whereas that record wore its cartoon tendencies on its sleeve, Mercury Rev take on a far more ambient and ethereal direction.

Indeed, it's as if the prog-rock excesses of the 1970s have manifested themselves again, with stories rife that the album is named after two teenage girls' ponies.