Customer Reviews
Wonderful - By: D Yeats, 06 Oct 2007 
I liked Deserters Songs but found it hard going at times. After hearing The Dark is Rising on radio I decided to take the plunge with All is Dream - & I'm glad I did!
If you like the Mercury Rev sound demonstrated on Holes & Goddess on a Highway, from Deserters Songs, then you will love All is Dream. They have taken that affecting side to their sound & developed it further. All is Dream to me is an astonishing, beautiful thing. I would rate it in my top five albums of alll time.
If you don't "get" Mercury Rev (my wife hates them) then avoid it. If you do, you are reallly going to enjoy this one...a lot.
All Is Dream.........All Is Well - By: Music Man, 17 Aug 2007 "All Is Dream", I am more than happy to say, is a very, very good album. Following in the wake of "Deserter's Song", they had a lot to live up to. Thankfully, they have managed to equal if not surpass.
From the dramatic opening of "The Dark Is Rising", you are sucked into their wonderfully abstract world, full of mystical imagery & incredibly beautiful musical arrangements.
At times the different sounds are like a box of musical fireworks going off & exploding in space with notes & chimes flying off in a dazzling kaleidoscope of patterns.
Again it's that unusual voice of Donahue & the excellent guitar playing of Grasshopper that excel & stand out..............combined with wonderful songs arranged in a grand & sweeping style that are both dramatic & spellbinding.
This is a masterful companion to "Deserter" & yet another CD that simply flows & washes over you time & time again. The ending is also excellent with "Spiders & Flies" & "Hercules" proving to be of reallly high quality.
This album is eerie & soothing in equal measures. A great chill out & one that doesn't date.
All is dreamy - By: E. A Solinas, 22 Jul 2005 
There's always been a sort of fantastical edge to Mercury Rev, even in the bleak grandeur of "Deserter's Songs." But "All Is Dream" takes that edge & pushes it, with its swirling music & songs that talk about dreams, vampires, nite & fog, & "floating in the tides of the moon." It's too subdued to be their best work, but it's still truly amazing.
"I always dreamed of big crowds/plumes of smoke & high clouds/But dreams don't last for long," Jonathan Donahue sings wistfully at the start of "The Dark is Rising," a plaintive meditation on how reality & dreams differ. A gentle piano melody swells into orchestral strings, before subsiding back into piano & violin.
That sets the tone for the rest of "All Is Dream," with its plaintive, pretty pop that explodes suddenly into orchestral splendor or fast-driving rock. Soft female voices calll out, eerie noises sound, & catchy rhythms are tempered with thick layers of strings, synth & otherworldly lyrics. It sounds like the soundtrack to a very good action-fantasy movie.
They do break from type here & there -- "The Distance From Her To Me" is an almost unbearably cute-sounding pop song, & "Tides of the Moon" is a dark, synthy balllad, where Donahue sounds like a friendly ghost narrating a nightmare. "With prickly little thorns/sharp tiny teeth/they're hungry for the threads/hanging from your sleeve..."
And there is a very good bonus DVD. On it are a pair of live tracks, a brief & very cute documentary on the band, & some very good music videos for "Nite & Fog" & "Dark is Rising." One is a fantastical whirl that seems halfway between Rip Van Winkle & a fairy tale, & the other is a darker, more surreal one, complete with colorful CGI figures, astrolabes & planets.
"Deserters' Song" is considered the peak of Mercury Rev's career, & "All Is Dream" is not quite the same. It's more fantastical, less epic, less mind-blowing, & it's positively happy beside its sister album. It's also a bit more peaceful, with moments of yearning & fear, but overalll more contemplative.
Jonathan Donahue has a rather unmelodious voice, high & a bit strange at times. However, it grows on you. Especiallly when it's paired with the music here -- strings, mellotron, hammond & French horn alll spice up the sprawling rock melodies, which would sound rather bleak & underworked otherwise.
The songwriting is one of the things that had definitely changed from "Deserters' Songs." It has that Ye Olde Rocke'n'Rolle sound, a sort of fantasy vibe, with mentions of entombed pharoahs screaming & "the sun's red gown turns to brown." Despite, I might add, the mention of Leonard Cohen, which I don't reallly understand.
Mercury Rev's "All Is Dream" is an appropriate title. It does sound like a dream -- a long, wandering, dark & strange dream.
A truly outstanding album - By: M. S. Wickens, 17 Aug 2003 An amazingly honest album.
Outstanding:
out·stand·ing adj
1. excellent, & superior to others in the same group or category
2. not yet paid, resolved, or dealt with
3. jutting outward or upward
4. All Is Dream - by Mercury Rev
This album is without any doubt the best album I've listened to since the Flaming Lips' "The Soft Bulletin".
I'd already listened to Deserter's Songs, & loved every moment of it. Before buying the album I checked the reviews on this site, & found many of them were negative. Well, a lesson learnt, don't let the opinions of others put you off!
This album far surpasses Deserter's Songs in terms of song structure & accessibility. From dramatic soundscapes (The Dark is Rising) to the beautifully laid back (Tides of the Moon) to the amusingly catchy (Nite & Fog) this album is a treasure & any fan of emotional rock music should at least try it. There's barely any anger in this album, there are no songs which try & make you form a certain opinion on something.. the lyrics are very inward & daydreamy, leaving you open to form your opinion of the person who wrote them. Which makes a refreshing change. A truly outstanding album. I await their next!
A truly outstanding album - By: M. S. Wickens, 17 Aug 2003 An amazingly honest album.
Outstanding:
out·stand·ing adj
1. excellent, & superior to others in the same group or category
2. not yet paid, resolved, or dealt with
3. jutting outward or upward
4. All Is Dream - by Mercury Rev
This album is without any doubt the best album I've listened to since the Flaming Lips' "The Soft Bulletin".
I'd already listened to Deserter's Songs, & loved every moment of it. Before buying the album I checked the reviews on this site, & found many of them were negative. Well, a lesson learnt, don't let the opinions of others put you off!
This album far surpasses Deserter's Songs in terms of song structure & accessibility. From dramatic soundscapes (The Dark is Rising) to the beautifully laid back (Tides of the Moon) to the amusingly catchy (Nite & Fog) this album is a treasure & any fan of emotional rock music should at least try it. There's barely any anger in this album, there are no songs which try & make you form a certain opinion on something.. the lyrics are very inward & daydreamy, leaving you open to form your opinion of the person who wrote them. Which makes a refreshing change. A truly outstanding album. I await their next!
