2008-02-12
The Magnetic Fields’ eighth album doesn't really try to cover any new grounds. Stephin Merritt's, the mastermind behind the group, undisputed ability to create short and to the point 3 minute songs, has proven itself once again in the current album. Since 1990, the year their debut album was released, the magnetic fields have changed their skin several times and transformed from a raw synth-pop sound to an acoustic one, and now Merritt steps back into the darkness with walls of distortion that cover up his clearly intentional pop orientation with a thick fog that will no doubt send him away from the territory of MTV Hits to the more appreciated realms of MTV2.
But these are mainly cosmetic changes, and though the crucial importance of the "how" in music there isn't any substitute to the "what".
The magnetic fields make fun pop songs but with a twist, just as Tarantino in "Kill Bill" took the vocabulary of a Kong-fu movie and turned it into a story about complicated human issues such as motherhood, revenge and death, so is Distortion trying to create a "more than meets the eye" feeling in the music, but unlike the genius of Tarantino, here, the distance between the surface to the bottom isn't as great as it first seems.
The peaceful singing of Merritt and Shirley Simms who accompanies him on the vocal part through the album, paint the songs with an optimistic and cheerful vibe, that at times makes your mind think of a group of laughing cheerleaders jumping and dancing with a smile that won't go down through a terrorist attack. To that overall feeling is added a darker content which tries to choke everything "nice" in the music, which creates the contrast and interest in the album. The first hint that not everything is on the up and up comes from Merritt's unusual voice, but the biggest effort in making the cynical contrast in the album comes from the rough and distorted sound which makes you feel like you're listening to the music behind a closed door, an atmosphere that brings back more or less pleasant memories, depends on who you ask, from the dark eighties when
Joy Division,
The Jesus and Mary Chain and their kind ruled the streets.
Lyrically Merritt's keeps everything simple, when he is angry at the world he just says so. Like in one of the best tracks of the album "California girls" with the winning and brief line "I hate California girls", and when he's hurting the pains of love in the song "Too drunk to dream", like in a lab report, he sums up the benefits of being drunk against all the bad things you get in life when you're sober.
That's when the album reveals its biggest weakness. It actually doesn't say much anywhere, and beside the slight curves up the road, as already mentioned, the trip we're taking is quite obvious even before we fastened our seat belts and relaxed to enjoy the ride. Distortion is without a doubt great fun, but it seems that The Magnetic Fields want our attention for more than just a casual soundtrack for a slow afternoon, they aim at something deeper, and for that you need something more.
The contrast of sadness and happiness, good and bad, black and white aren't interesting enough to maintain listening for a long while. The same way, we as people, I like to believe, are made of more than two feelings, so should be the music we listen to. The amazing decade Merritt is influenced from on this album is filled with examples on how music and life can be complex.
I'm sure that if it was possible,
Ian Curtis, the late Joy Division's front man, could have told us exactly how much. Actually he quite did.
Ofir Shalev
