#392 The Magnetic Fields - i

A friend listed this among their favorite albums and I realized that I'd never heard it despite (mostly) liking 69 Love Songs and (somewhat) liking Distortion.

Stephin Merritt is a tough pill to swallow: endlessly morose, powerfully prolific, alternately heavy and frail, and generally seductively difficult as singer-songwriter types go. At least Young and Dylan and Darnielle have the decency to just throw down an album that bristles with obvious prickers, but Merritt is a silk bag of unhinged scissors. Plus, man, the man knows his way around a melody, can build an unassailable atmosphere from the frailest parts, and can spin a hell of a vocal turn. The strengths are most prominently on display on I Don't Believe You, with its gorgeous [guitar? mandolin??] solo and hitched lyrical lines, where the meaning doesn't pivot into place until 5 or 6 words after the mid-line punchline.

This is actually probably the most solid of The Magnetic Fields' albums that I've heard, remaining engaging throughout. The effect is cumulative without being oppressive, cathartic at least as often as it's crushing, building a damaged castle, brick after wounded brick, occasionally pausing to knock it to pieces. There are some missteps, some songs where Merrit doesn't seem to have much to do but repeat the name of the song (ok, ok, 'evil twin', 'late at night', got it) and the band doesn't seem to have much interest in providing much spark.

This seems like a very positive review as I write it. Fact is, the singer songwriter scene still isn't something I'm all that into, so we're still only going to end up at 3.5/5

You might like this if: you like lovelorn singer-songwriting, with lush, crushing production and lush crushing sentiment to match.