See You on the Other Side

Mercury Rev | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 19, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000002A5V
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,695 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Empire State (Son House In Excelsis)

2. Young Man's Stride

3. Sudden Ray Of Hope

4. Everlasting Arm

5. Racing The Tide

6. Close Entcounters Of The 3rd Grade

7. A Kiss From An Old Flame (A Trip To The Moon)

8. Peaceful Night

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Addictive Album December 30, 1999

By Joe Rose

Format:Audio CD

I, unlike the other reviewer, see this as the best of the lot. Yerself has some moments(car wash hair! saw it live and it blew me away)and Boces has that one song(the first one)but this one has a flow and is consistently strong throughout. Sudden Ray of Hope gives off a warm feeling that one can rarely experience through sound. There are moments of Empire State and Young Man's that have more energy than a nuclear plant. Deserter's song was a great album as well but almost a little too sweet in places. This is the one for me and hopefully you will enjoy it as well. If you like this one try out the latest Flaming Lips.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars They Are No Quirky Alternative Rock Band!!! September 19, 2000

By MaddKhameleon

Format:Audio CD

Alternative music sux! What in the world is alternative music? I have never understood the concept and will never understand it in the future. You call Oasis alternative, Alanis Moresette alternative, now you call Mercury Rev a quirky alternative rock band. What is the similarity between Mercury Rev and the other two? They have become big in the year 1998 with their latest offering `Deserted Songs',(at least among the critics) so you guys must be thinking, it must be another great alternative rock band right? And presumably, `Deserted Songs' is their best album right? Ok, let me tell you, you have made a grave mistake and deserve to be executed. Just check out their earlier `Boces' and this one, which I think is their classic. While `Boces' is noisier and more erratic, this one is diverse. Yes, its vision is much wider than that of `Deserted Songs', I agree with most people, `Deserted Songs' is great. The string arrangement, the exotic guitar effect, the experimental piano intro, it is their most romantic album to date. It can be melancholic and romantic at the same time without sounding anything along the line of saccharine divas. Yes, just like some of the R&B divas out there, soul music also influences the sound of Mercury Rev tremendously, so does progressive rock, ambient, jazz... Eclectic is the word, then again, thanks to most music critics, the word has become such a cliché. Anyway, if you think `Deserted Songs' is great, you have to check this out!!! Just listen to the atonal piano on the first track, as well as many other tracks, you can tell how different this band is. As the first track `Empire State...' proceeds, you can hear so much different instrumentation, everything could sound bloody out of place if another band did it. But on Mercury Rev's hands, everything fits perfectly well, "beautiful" some cry, wait, don't say this before you hear the noise which comes in at 2'30''. The noise sounds nothing like heavy metal, they have absolutely nothing to do with nasty heavy metal bands, the source of this white noise is from jazz, from bebop to be exact. The whole track lasts 7'29'', ambitious effort, but then again, it is absolutely diverse, so you can never get bored of it. `Young Man's Stride' is a punk song for Mercury Rev, for the imbecile bunch who devours trashy punk bands like Rancid and Green Day. Check this one out. As a contrast, to the punkish `Young Man's Stride', `Sudden Ray of Hope' is absolutely wonderful, yes, I admit, it gets noisy sometimes, but that's the pleasure you get when you listen to Mercury Rev's music. Your mood changes constantly, from happy to sad, from sad back to happy. Mercury Rev's music sounds pretty cheerful at first listen, but this is exactly the irony. They are in no way an optimistic bunch. One thing I have to mention is: the brass section on this track is splendid, you don't get to hear that often on another `alternative' band's record, do you? `Everlasting Arm' is an exquisite ballad, the distinctive atonal piano prevail. It could fit perfectly well with the rest of the songs on `Deserted Songs', well, this is even more beautiful than `Goddess On a Hiway', don't you think so? A bliss from start to end. `Racing the Tide' is yet another romantic yet anthemic track. `Close Encounter of the 3rd Grace' sounds not unlike a cross between `Come Together' on Primal Scream and Portishead's `Mysterons', while not as depressive as Portishead, this sounds even spookier, it sounds more like the ghosts are dancing happily. I really adore the part of lyrics on `A Kiss From An Old Flame', it goes something like this `Two fools rush in, you and I." Get it? The music is here at the album's most beautiful, really. Spooky as always, this one sounds even more cheerful. Not only ghosts dance to their music, even the angels come and join them on this track. Both angels and ghosts love their music, why don't you like this? That's the sole thing that has been puzzling me for ages. `Peaceful Night' is a lullaby, but it is one of the weirdest lullaby I have ever heard in my whole life, the way Jonathan sings, he sounds like he has just wet his pants and he is feeling very embarrassed. The way the piano is playing, not unlike those two instrumental tracks on `Deserted Songs'. That song brings an end to the album, even the aftertaste is great. You feel good after listening to their music, isn't that great or what? Sometimes I am thinking, why some great bands' average albums are the ones which brought them to fame? While the best album by them, the ones that should have been classics remain as hidden gem, or they are only discovered until later, it happened to REM's `Murmur' as well as Belle & Sebastian's `Tigermilk'. `See You On the Other Side' is Mercury Rev's best album, if you haven't heard anything from Mercury Rev, buy this one first, it is more traditional Mercury Rev than `Deserted Songs' and this is simply superior. The best thing is: This is NO ALTERNATIVE!!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Marking A Positive Transition May 29, 2011

By kabalabonga

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

No one I know who listened to the raw, swirling, aggressive tracks on the `Rev's first full-length release, "Yerself Is Steam" anticipated the heavy orchestration brought to bear on "See You On The Other Side", their third CD, and the first to be recorded without original vocalist David Baker. While plenty of melodies could be found on "Yerself Is Steam", it seemed as if they were imposed upon the structure of many of the cuts through a process of chaotic order. While "See You On The Other Side" does retain/contain some of the heavily psychedelic guitar work so prevalent on "Yerself Is Steam", it promotes many more of the sweeping and atmospheric moments that punctuated (rather than propelled) that CD's less densely cluttered tracks.

Jonathan Donahue, who took lead vocals on a minority of "Yerself Is Steam"'s cuts, takes them on every track of this release. Having been turned on to Mercury Rev by that first CD, I have to admit that it took a couple of listen-throughs before I could make a positive adjustment to the absence of Baker's throaty vocals, as Donahue's cadence is not only more clipped and precise, but the intonation is softer as well. What made "See You On The Other Side" a revelation for me was the decision to send it in that heavily orchestrated direction. Sure, Dave Fridman's heavy resounding basslines and Jimi Chambers's polyrhythmic percussion form the spine of each song, with both Jonathan Donahue and Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiack manning the guitars. Suzanne Thorpe's flute plays an integral part in establishing the bouncy, slowly building tempo of "Empire State", the first track, until, with brass fanfare to enrich it, it reaches its explosive climax. "Sudden Ray of Hope" also develops a portion of its groove from a particularly savory fluteline, trumpet weaving its way through the song in fluidic progression, tied together with main guitarist Grasshopper's heavily modulated, almost tangibly present wave after wave of circular distortion. "Everlasting Arm", a gorgeous, elegantly structured piece, is driven mainly by a slowly plucked, heavily resonant bassline and a variety of keyboards and horns (primarily in the manifestation of piano and trumpet)but weaves in wickedly offbeat elements such as syncopated fingersnaps and whistling to lend a truly inspired polish. "Racing The Tide", another cut that slowly builds toward a sustained explosive ending, has the most sweeping orchestral dimension of any of the tracks, again tied together with heavily modulated riffing and keyboards that chime through levels of ascension. "A Kiss From An Old Flame" finds the flute and other instruments clambering up and down their respective scales in a more moderate tempo, while "Peaceful Night" plays out as some sort of quiet psychedelic lullaby. The only song that seems out of place here is "Young Man's Stride", an aggressive, up-tempo cut driven by a heavily churning guitar and pounding, insistent drums, more reminiscent of something that might have fit in more tightly on their previous release, "BOCES" .

"See You On The Other Side" served as a major transitional point in Mercury Rev's sound, and is still my favorite among their releases that contain their lushly orchestrated version of psychedelically tinged pop. Definitely worth grabbing!