Psych rockers Mercury Rev are back with the announcement of a new album, Born Horses, and the release of its lead single, “Patterns.”
Due on September 6th via Bella Union, Born Horses will be the band’s first new original album since 2015’s The Light in You. Speaking about the album’s origins, the band’s Grasshopper explained that they were inspired by a certain sense of nostalgia. “When Jonathan [Donahue] and I first met, one thing we bonded over was Blade Runner,” he said. “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.”
Grasshopper cited other influences, everything from “Broadway tunes, to lonesome blues, Chet Baker, Miles Davis’ Sketches Of Spain, records that our parents listened to” and more, but emphasized that Mercury Rev “put a twist into the future.” For his part, Donahue praised the mutual understanding of the musicians who played on the album, saying “We’ve celebrated this unspoken trust in the ‘statue already inside the marble’. We didn’t make Born Horses by throwing clay on top of clay; we allowed Time to reveal what was always there.”
To that end, the album’s lead single, “Patterns,” touches on the topic of time, featuring spoken-word lyrics musing on the myriad of patterns that make up our lives. Talking about the single, the band 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…”
Watch the new visualizer for “Patterns” and check out Born Horses’ artwork and tracklist below.
Up next, Mercury Rev will hit the road for tour dates in Australia and Europe, kicking off in August and stretching through 2025. Grab tickets here.
Born Horses Artwork:
Born Horses Tracklist:
01. Mood Swings
02. Ancient Love
03. Your Hammer, My Heart
04. Patterns
05. A Bird of No Address
06. Born Horses
07. Everything I Thought I Had Lost
08. There’s Always Been a Bird In Me