BOCES
The band varies its usual krautrock groove (a mechanically precise drumbeat called motorik meant to evoke driving on the autobahn) by injecting stretches of quiet flute noodling and free jazz wanking. Mercury Rev is most effective when frontman David Baker (a slacker version of Pere Ubu's David Thomas) mumbles and screeches behind guitarists Grasshopper and Jonathan Donahue's white-noise assaults, as on "Trickle Down" and "Bronx Cheer." Unfocused tunes such as "Bottom's Up" and "Girlfren" (not the Jonathan Richman song) are worse than headache-inducing; they're boring.--Jim DeRogatis