Distortion
The Magnetic Fields
Score:75
Reviewer: Ed Butler
Label: Nonesuch (USA & UK), Warner (Australia)
Reviewed: Jan 29th '08, Released:2008
The title of The Magnetic Fields’ eighth long-player, Distortion, is possibly the most accurate descriptor ever bestowed on a piece of music. Frontman, and sometimes vocalist, Stephin Merritt has drenched the album in so much fuzz guitar noise it sounds as if he wore out overdrive pedals during its production. However, instrumental affectations aside, Merritt’s unabashed love of sunny ‘60s pop remains undiminished, and Distortion comes across sounding like the bastard lovechild of The Beach Boys, The Ronettes and Eddie Van Halen.
However bizarre this hybrid may sound, it bears remembering that Distortion is, above all else, a pop record – remove the feedback and reverb, and ‘Xavier Says’ becomes a vintage girl-group number. And in the spirit of all great pop music, The Magnetic Fields keep things remarkably brief. In this sense, the album is most reminiscent of Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet, taking what should be top-40 pop songs and twisting them out of shape through sheer volume and instrumentation. Perhaps this, then, is the distortion of the title.
The contradiction throughout all of these comparisons and golden days nostalgia is that, while curiously poppy in its implementation, Distortion is a morbidly depressed record, one that in some ways evokes the spirit of My Bloody Valentine. Whomsoever we believe to be the closest reference point, Merritt’s themes and obsessions are his own.
From the self-loathing of ‘Too Drunk to Dream’ to ‘I’ll Dream Alone’ and its misery to the closing, viciously bitter ‘Courtesans’, the track listing reads like a self-therapy session wrapped in a particularly pretty bow. With this in mind, all the benchmarks seem limited as a summary of Distortion. Its sentiment is closer to a condensation of the past 20 years of popular indie music than the girls, car and surf facade of the ‘60s heyday; in Distortion the undercurrents of pain linger long after the pleasantries and faux smiles have faded.
