Fine-tuned Mercury Rev coming back to Greece

Enjoying a colorful past, New York art-rock band will end European tour here

GEORGE KOLYVAS

One of the more admired rock bands of recent years, upstate New York’s Mercury Rev — an act that has won over hordes of critics and fans in recent years with its ethereal art-rock style — will cap its latest European tour with two shows in Greece later this week before returning home for a series of domestic dates.

The group, which first toured here three years ago in support of 1998’s widely acclaimed “Deserter’s Songs,” a widespread favorite among critics at the time, will once again be playing on the strength of another well-received album, last year’s “All Is Dream.”

Commenting on Mercury Rev’s later work, and on how the band’s members felt while making “All Is Dream,” Grasshopper, the group’s guitarist and co-founder, noted that the overall level of confidence had risen, boosted by the generally enthusiastic response. “After ‘See You On the Other Side’ [1995], we were pretty bummed out that [that album] didn’t reach as far and didn’t connect with people. Then, when ‘Deserter’s Songs’ [1998] became so popular, it made us smile and say, ‘OK, we’re doing something worthwhile...’,” he noted in an older interview. “There are still moments of desperation and questioning, like, ‘Is this any good?’ But on a general level, we were a lot more comfortable with what we were doing and not so afraid.”

The band formed in the late 1980s, originally as a means for creating soundtracks to experimental films that they and their friends were creating. The developing band was encouraged to keep pursuing its early musical journeying by academic mentor Tony Conrad, a minimalist composer and multimedia artist who performed with progressive figures such as La Monte Young and John Cale.

Unfocused and scattered — at the time — across the USA due to the various individual projects of the band’s members, Mercury Rev’s personnel regathered after an early demo made its way to the British offices of the weighty New Wave label Rough Trade. It signed the band.

The debut album, 1991’s “Yerself Is Steam,” a distorted art-pop outing, excited critics. But, just weeks after its release, Rough Trade’s American branch declared bankruptcy, erasing any plans of proper distribution and promotion at home. Subsequently, the band opted to focus its efforts on the UK front, but the tour there was a ramshackle affair. Mercury Rev were reportedly performing without any practice sessions while, typifying the period’s bedlam, it was not uncommon for the band’s singer at the time, James Baker, to abandon the stage for the odd refill at the bar during songs.

Despite the inevitable tension caused by such circumstances, the band persisted with serious intent. It set up its own studio to craft the second album. The result, “Boces,” another lauded effort, was released in 1993 and led to further exposure for the obscure act. But the greater attention did not end the occasional antics. While playing Lollapalooza, a major traveling rock festival of the 1990s that assembled bills of cutting-edge acts and took them to large audiences in various US cities, Mercury Rev were dropped during the festival’s Denver stop due to their show’s excessive noise. Festival officials cut the electricity to the stage during the set. Further back, at the venue’s mixing desk, concert security reportedly dragged Mercury Rev’s soundman away from the console with a headlock. More spice was added when, during its period of neglect, the group cast a notorious porn star in a video clip. Not surprisingly, it did not get mainstream airplay.

In spite of their mischievous pranks, Mercury Rev’s move to sack Baker, the band’s original singer and perhaps its most confrontational figure, did suggest that some kind of order was wanted. The decision made an impact on the band’s sound. “See You on the Other Side,” the group’s first album without Baker, liberated Mercury Rev from their former frontman’s darker impulses. The album came as a stylistic turning point for the group, which began exploring more diverse musical territory with greater emotional depth. In retrospect, the aforementioned release proved a forerunner of what was simmering below the surface for Mercury Rev’s far more elaborate prospective work and subsequent mainstream acceptance.

Thursday (25/4), Mylos Club, Thessaloniki, 0310.551.836; Friday (26/4), Rodon Club, Athens, 010.524.7427.