Mercury Rev have shared details of an upcoming album called ‘Born Horses’, and revealed a new run of UK and European tour dates. Find ticket details below, as well as the lead single ‘Patterns’.
The album marks the American rock group’s first new LP of new material in nine years, and comes as the follow-up to 2015’s ‘The Light in You’. It is set to arrive on September 6 via Bella Union.
To celebrate the announcement, the band have dropped the lead single from the project – the spiritual, outward-looking track ‘Patterns’. In the song, the band take a closer look at the patterns that make up the world around us, and deliver artistic spoken word lyrics on top of the swirling, atmospheric instrumentals.
“When we gaze up at the stars in the sky at night, the flickering lights seem random,” the band said of the inspiration for the track. “If we could zoom out and see all of the galaxies revolving around each other, we would see the order in it. There are only Patterns on top of Patterns…” Check it out below.
As for the album itself, a press release describes the project as seeing the band deliver a “cascade of gleaming, glistening psych-jazz-folk-baroque-ambient quest that searches its soul but can never truly know the answer”. It also describes Mercury Rev as creating a sound and vision that centres around self-reflection and an awareness of both time and reality.
“When Jonathan [Donahue] and I first met, one thing we bonded over was Blade Runner, both Ridley Scott’s film and Vangelis’ soundtrack: that feel of the past and the future, the haunting noir mood and the romance of the future… ‘Born Horses’ taps into some of that,” said Grasshopper.
“Looking back to childhood, to Broadway tunes, to lonesome blues, Chet Baker, Miles Davis’ Sketches Of Spain, records that our parents listened to, but we put a twist into the future. From the beginning, Mercury Rev were on a cusp, between analogue and digital, hi-fi and lo-fi at the same time. It was like Brecht or Weill, the words suggesting visuals, and the visuals suggesting moods. We also thought a lot about the desert on this record, and the urban desert.”
The title of the LP came after the majestic sixth track was written, and chosen by the members as its words resonated through the entire record and encompassed the idea of flight.
“When I opened my voice to sing on this record, this was the bird that sang: a lower, whiskery voice, which surprised me as much as it may others,” Donahue added of the album inspiration. “I don’t know where the bird came from, but it’s there now, and I don’t question it. It’s just the bird that wants to sing.”
Pre-order ‘Born Horses’ here, and check out both the tracklist and album artwork below.
Mercury Rev ‘Born Horses’ album artwork. CREDIT: Press
The ‘Born Horses’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Mood Swings’
2. ‘Ancient Love’
3. ‘Your Hammer, My Heart’
4. ‘Patterns’
5. ‘A Bird Of No Address’
6. ‘Born Horses’
7. ‘Everything I Thought I Had Lost’
8. ‘There’s Always Been A Bird In Me’
While it is Mercury Rev’s first album of new material since 2015, it does also arrive following them releasing the covers album ‘Bobbie Gentry’s the Delta Sweete Revisited’ back in 2019.
As well as the new material, the members have also revealed a run of tour dates across the UK and Europe. These kick off later this year, and will continue into the beginning of 2025.
They launch with a show in Belfast on October 27, and two legs of UK shows have been confirmed. These include shows in Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Cambridge and more in November, and four dates in Liverpool, Manchester, Portsmouth and London in Spring 2025.
European shows include stops in Amsterdam, Paris, Oslo, Copenhagen and more at the end of this year. Visit here to buy tickets and find a full list of tour dates below.
Musician Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev performs live. CREDIT: Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images
The Mercury Rev 2024-2025 tour dates are:
OCTOBER 2024
27 – Belfast – Mandela Hall
28 – Limerick – Dolans Warehouse
29 – Galway – Roisin Dub
30 – Cork – Cyprus Avenue
31 – Dublin – Button Factory
NOVEMBER 2024
2 – Norwich – Arts Centre
3 – Bristol – Trinity
4 – Newcastle – Boiler Shop
6 – Glasgow – The Garage
7 – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
8 – Cambridge – Junction
9 – Brighton – Mutations Festival
11 – Amsterdam – Paradiso
12 – Leuven – Het Depot
13 – Paris – La Maroquinerie
15 – Weissenhauser Strand – Rolling Stone Beach Festival
16 – Copenhagen – Bremen Theatre
17 – Johanneshov – Slaktkyrkan
18- Oslo – Vulkan Arena
MARCH 2025
13 – Liverpool – Content
14 – Manchester – New Century Hall
18 – Portsmouth – Wedgewood Rooms
19 – London – EartH
In other Mercury Rev news, earlier this year it was reported that Suede’s Brett Anderson had teamed up with Nadine Shah for a moving version of Mercury Rev’s ‘Holes’.
The collaboration has come about as part of a project led by Paraorchestra, and their founder and artistic director Charles Hazlewood, who have put together the album ‘Death Songbook’.
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