Chris Roberts reviews Mercury Rev’s Yerself Is Steam, 16th February 1991

Truth be told this is a pretty uninspiring issue of Melody Maker but there is this, a review of Mercury Rev’s debut, a record that’s brought me immeasurable pleasure over the years and for which I’m grateful to long time friend and sometime commentator Phil for telling me about. The fact that pointless, one hit wonder, girl duo Soho get the featured review spot seems incomprehensible to me – the only reason HippyChick was a hit was because it used a Smiths sample which seemed quite daring and novel back in 1991.

If you’ve only ever heard latterday Rev then you MUST get hold of a copy of Yerself Is Steam, one of my Top10 records of all time.

Oh and no…I couldn’t fucking dig it and it still amazes me that Vodafone did

Mercury Rev live at Mean Fiddler, 1991

Simon Reynolds reviews Mercury Rev live at The Mean Fiddler. Taken from Melody Maker 15th June 1991.

From one nutter to another bunch of nutters. The 1st Mercury Rev album is still a thing of visceral beauty. I’m sure I went to this gig. Very Sleepy Rivers was indeed epic. Jonathan smashed his guitar and Suzanne totalled her flute on the monitor. I thought it was the most rock and roll thing I’d ever seen or heard. A few years later I saw them play the Clapham Grand and they destroyed a grand piano with some backstage scaffolding during their opening song, handing out the ivory keys to the audience.