Reverencing the seasons and the mysterious "unseen force behind the turning leaves",
The Secret Migration is not the work of practicing Druids but the sixth album from gliding American trio Mercury Rev, a band whose much-vaunted astral rock weightlessness (see the classic
Deserter’s Songs) has now touched down in the residual dark green undergrowth of Eden. It’s a distant, magical place where dragonflies, apparently, are inclined to "offer you a ride".
Narcotic ambiguity aside, The Secret Migration is either a pretty nature travelogue gilded with breathless escapism or an eleventh hour ecological wake up call before The Man puts up the "Sold - Subject To Planning Permission" notice. More importantly, it’s an excellent "concept" record with the strident "In The Wilderness" and bittersweet Beatles-esque "First Time Mother’s Joy" promising potential dividends beyond the group’s established cult-band curtilage. A bewitched Jonathan Donahue sings with the explorative wonderment of a man wandering abroad through a pot-headed botanist’s midnight summer dream. Talk of swans, white horses and "dormant patient roots" becoming "childish shoots" lends The Secret Migration a fairytale folk quality respectfully redolent of Donovan but the soft psychedelic hues of Mercury Rev’s Arcadian canvas are entirely their own. Wistfully magnificent. --Kevin Maidment
