Sparks
MAD! TRANSGRESSIVE
Ageless glam-rock surrealists keep their autumnal comeback rolling.
Still surfing a gloriously extended late-career comeback wave, Ron and Russell Mael deliver their twenty-sixth studio album, bolstered by a decade-long run of Top 10 albums, laudatory documentaries and acclaimed left-field collaborations. Although both are now closer to 80 than to 70, the strangely ageless LA duo’s high-gloss fusion of art-rock, chamber-pop and avant-cabaret elements remains reliably pin-sharp and lyrically droll. Meanwhile, the brothers are playing some of their biggest live shows ever.
Ron Mael’s songwriting has always had a romantic undertow, but typically veiled beneath multiple layers of tongue-twisting wordplay and deadpan mirth. Unusually, much of MAD! ruminates on love and heartache in a more-or-less straightforward fashion. The sparkling, softly throbbing ballad Everybody Looks Great At Night belies its sardonic title with achingly emotional yearning, while A Little Bit Of Light Banter, for all its jokey tone, celebrates the shared humour that keeps couples together. Lord Have Mercy is a tender domestic vignette that builds into an anthemic soft-rocker. The lushly orchestrated heart-tugger Drowned In A Sea Of Tears is the bittersweet confession of a cheerfully clueless optimist who fails to spot his partner’s growing depression.
But fans of Sparks as quirk-pop pranksters can rest easy, because MAD! also contains plenty of the duo’s signature comic flourishes. Paying semi-ironic tribute to the mighty motorway that cuts through LA, I-405 Rules is a thunderous mini-opera, stern and discordant and loaded with drama. The gloriously titled Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab dissects the fake celebrity lifestyle over twangy Duane Eddy-ish guitar rumbles and cinematic strings. Don’t Dog It is a doomed quest for philosophical truth that reduces the meaning of life to robo-voiced slogans and nagging mechanical piano riffs, sounding like a great lost Devo track.