Mercury Rev announce new album Born Horses

Mercury Rev have announced their first album of original music in nine years, Born Horses, due out September 6.

The band also shared the lead single ‘Patterns’ as well as its music video.

Speaking of the new track, Mercury Rev said: “When we gaze up at the stars in the sky at night, the flickering lights seem random. 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….”

The band’s last original release dates back to 2015 with their record The Light In You, which was followed by the 2019 covers album Bobbie Gentry’s the Delta Sweete Revisited.

Listen to ‘Patterns’ below:

For this new release, the band cite minimalist artist Tony Conrad and beat poet Robert Creeley as influences.

Sean ‘Grasshopper’ Mackowiak explained how Born Horses was partly inspired by the blossoming of his friendship with Jonathan Donahue and their shared love for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and its “haunting noir mood.”

“Born Horses taps into some of that,” he said. “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.”

Mercury Rev will performing at Dublin's In The Meadows festival this weekend, and touring Ireland. For more information, click here.

Find the full track list of Born Horses below:

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