Social Distortion
The Magnetic Fields finds melody and romance amid the searing shoegaze noise
By Chris Morris
Listeners prone to gazing at their shoes have been cheered by some recent reunion events. Last year, the Jesus and Mary Chain regrouped for an appearance at Coachella and U.S. tour dates; this spring, My Bloody Valentine is convening for some European concerts and, hopefully, a sortie to these shores.
But even if these much-prized bands hadn’t taken to the stage again, lovers of noisy dream-pop would have a destination: Distortion (Nonesuch), the new album by the Magnetic Fields. Part homage, part personal statement, this 38-minute slice of tuneful grind would be enough to satisfy any JAMC or MBV freak by itself.
Stephin Merritt is one of rock’s busiest beavers. Since his early days in the early ’90s as a bedroom artiste, he has piled up a large discography, not only as leader of the Magnetic Fields but under such side-group handles as the 6ths and Future Bible Heroes. His prolific bent culminated with 1999’s 69 Love Songs, which was just what the title said it was – three score and nine romantic tunes, spread over three CDs.
The title of Distortion is likewise descriptive. Sonically the album’s 13 tracks owe everything to the precedent set by JAMC’s Jim and William Reid, and to a lesser extent by MBV’s Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher. Many of Merritt’s songs ride an echoing “Just Like Honey”/“Be My Baby” backbeat, and most of the numbers begin with a brief fanfare of shearing guitar noise; the majority shimmer with twisted in-the-red fuzz. (“No synths,” runs a note in the liners.) The influence of MBV can be felt in the production’s heavily phased, disoriented wobble, and in traded-off vocals by Merritt (who often sounds like the Idiot-era Iggy Pop) and Shirley Simms (filling Butcher’s role, but just as frequently incarnating the Velvet Underground’s Nico and Maureen Tucker).
Merritt steps up with a collection of introspective tunes about romance gone horribly wrong and louche observations of the social demimonde. But, despite some genre-typical lyrical moping, the feel of the album is surprisingly chipper. This is probably because Merritt is a finer melodist than any of his models; his principal composing cues appear to be taken from Brian Wilson – like the Reids, a Phil Spector idolator. It isn’t accidental that one of the set’s most entertaining songs, “California Girls,” takes the Beach Boys’ paean to our Golden State bunnies and stands it on its empty blonde head. Lou Reed is another obvious source: The queeny “Xavier Says” (cf. “Candy Says” and “Lisa Says”), with its bitchy tone and vitriolic, conversational back-and-forth, invokes ol’ Lou’s heyday at Max’s Kansas City.
Classic shoegaze, for all its sonic delights, tended to suffer from a certain lugubriousness, but Merritt’s new-millennium gloss contains some ricocheting humor. “Too Drunk to Dream” extols the virtues of getting shitfaced as a cure-all for romantic discontent. Simms’s solo turns are especially droll, if bleak underneath their wry surfaces: “The Nun’s Litany” offers an array of alternative career choices – Playboy bunny, topless waitress, nude model, dominatrix, porno starlet – to the devout; “Courtesans” is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of kept womanhood; and “Drive On, Driver” suggests that the easiest way out of an uncomfortable love affair is to just run away. Other tracks – “Old Fools,” “Please Stop Dancing,” “I’ll Dream Alone,” and the anti-Christmas carol “Mr. Mistletoe” – muster their gloom straightforwardly, but they play differently within the brightened tonal context of the whole.
There’s nothing especially fresh about Distortion. Merritt and his colleagues are miming moves embraced by dreary teens some two decades back. But there’s an underpinning of merriment and well-placed dollops of irony amidst the sheets of sound that propel the album, making the Magnetic Fields’ move into shoegaze more than just a plunge into nostalgic skull-smash. This is crushing yet lively dream-pop that has the sound of the old, but the feel of something new.
The Magnetic Fields performs March 2-3 at the Music Box @ the Fonda in Hollywood.
Chris Morris hosts Watusi Rodeo on Indie 103.1 every Sunday at 9 a.m.
Published: 02/20/2008
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