There can’t be many better ways of reviving a flagging solo career than recruiting Mercury Rev as your backing band. Heather Nova’s fifth studio album started at home in Bermuda, where she recorded vocals and guitar for a new set of songs in the Caribbean sunshine. Then she took herself off to the Rev’s studio retreat, halfway up a snow-covered Woodstock mountain, where they added their uniquely weird soundtrack, sounding every bit as magnificent as they did on Deserter’s Songs and All Is Dream. Hard to tell how Nova’s songs and voice would have sounded without them. But the result is, predictably, her best album yet.
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