These Americans may claim 'All Is Dream' but it's music that rescuscitates hope, imagination and life's desire

In the current music world of no-dues-paid instant stardom, Mercury Rev have earned their reputation the hard way in the ten years since the debut album, 'Yerself Is Steam'. Their return to live work, ahead of their fifth album 'All Is Dream', for one-off performance was - nothing but refreshingly triumphant. It was like standing under a waterfall on a dog day afternoon... (Well, they hail from Buffalo, built on the American side of the Niagara Falls.)

Although all low-key on the showbiz front these songs flow like reviving whiffs of a sonic-shower (a reference Trekkers will dig), breezing over with psychedelic scent as the tunes get spaced-out from time to time. Not surprising because the boys have indulged in the hippy-pastime a lot, to the point of almost crippling their creativity during the second half of the 1990s.

The new album is full of strings and luscious instrumentation by once-Bowie's producer Tony Visconti, but tonight - it is all stripped down to the basic band, the principal trio and supporting musicians. And yet the new songs sound impressively live as do the studio versions: 'Nite and Fog', 'Lincoln's Eyes', 'You Are My Queen', 'The Dark Is Rising'...

The polite reception of the new songs is transformed into ecstatic yelps for the popular material, such as 'The Funny Bird', 'Holes', 'Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp, 'Opus 40' and, certainly, 'Goddess On A Highway'. Short-cropped Jonathan Donahue, in a scarlet shirt, delivers his distinctive vocal in all its glory of that unearthly nasal drawl, leading on emotional flights that are complimented with music getting confidently fragile before busying with blustering passion. Guitarist Sean 'Grasshopper' Mackowiak supplants Donahue with elegant vignettes, sometimes creepy but often as beautiful as any 'ideal partner' one conjures up.

The band's breakthrough Brit-nominated album, 'Deserter's Songs', might appear a tad more accessible than the more adventurous themed newie where dreams have seeped into reality and contaminated this merde we call living. Mercury Rev tonight, or on any day for that matter, display the ability to resuscitate hope, imagination and life's desire.