The Magnetic Fields: Distortion
Nonesuch Records
2008
Rating:


Stephin Merritt has said he conceived The Magnetic Fields' feedback-laced "Distortion" "to sound more like The Jesus and Mary Chain than The Jesus and Mary Chain." Yet the Fields' eighth LP sounds more like "Third/Sister Lovers"-era Big Star, another all-but-forgotten indie band. Like Big Star, Merritt washes his classical pop melodies in distortion, giving hooks that wouldn't have sounded out of place in the 1960s a roughhewn edge.

"California Girls," for instance, is almost as much homage as condemnation, turning the Beach Boys ode to West Coast women into harmonized derisiveness: "They breathe coke and they have affairs with each passing rock star... / ... I hate California girls" vocalist Shirley Simms sings. With the use of distortion, the song amusingly connects the Beach Boys to Sonic Youth, who once sang "we're gonna kill the California girls." Instrumental track "Three-Way" is one part Dick Dale and one part Chain.

Merritt's distortion gimmick, although ostensibly a Chain homage, functions more to liberate the Fields to become a full-fledged indie rock band. The Magnetic Fields are great at tackling show tunes, the blues and folk as they do all at once on the masterpiece "69 Love Songs," yet there's something electric about hearing the band run its accordions and cellos through feedback loops.

"Distortion" is never the shoegaze wall of sound of the Chain or My Bloody Valentine, though, because Merritt has too strong of a command of melody and too intelligent a grasp on lyricism. Merritt's lugubrious voice decries May-December romances on "Old Folks." The Simms harmonies that rise out of the chorus to "Driver, Drive On," about a futile attempt to escape the memory of a lover, shatter the Smashing Pumpkins-like fuzz. "The Nun's Litany" brilliantly describes a sister's dreams of forbidden longing ("I long to be a cobra dancer / With little Willy between my thighs.")

As with the Chain, MBV and Big Star before it, The Magnetic Fields finds melodic beauty in white noise.

Posted Saturday, January 19, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/magnetic.fields/distortion