This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us. It was my first experience of Sparks and I didn’t like it. I was too mired in big guitars and gritty vocals to get it, so I shouldn’t have given it another thought, except for the fact that the damn song stuck in my head, and I found myself returning, both to it, and to the two gentlemen, dressed in suits, one of whom sported the sort of pencil moustache that went out in the 1950s. Later Faith No More joined Sparks for a re-recorded version of This Town…, and I felt a little less guilty about the guilty pleasure the band represented in my collection – not that you should ever feel guilty about any music that you enjoy, but I was young. At any event, Sparks have picked up a remarkable cult following over the course of their fifty year career and it’s a delight to find that on this, their twenty-fourth album, the band have lost none of their quirky sense of humour, or fascination with all things bizarre.
The album opens with the bizarre acoustic strum of All That, a track that you couldn’t possibly expect, and which opens up the album with a sense of sun-kissed warmth that is strangely irresistible. It gives way to the angular, post-punk I’m Toast which so perfectly encapsulates the “cellophane sounds” of which Brett Anderson sang, that it ends up a strangely timeless piece of pop music that could have been produced at any point in the last forty years or so. Next up, the whimsical Lawnmower adds Barbershop vocals to the sort of backing track that you could imagine finding on “My First Casio”, the raindrop synth augmented by acoustic guitar and layers of vocals. An album highlight, the rippling Sainthood Is Not In Your Future sounds like Kraftwerk covering Arcade Fire and it is as sublime a piece of pop as you’ll hear all year. After the bright-eyed Sainthood… the grand piano-led Pacific Standard Time has a sweeping, cinematic feel, Russell singing better than ever as Ron layers strings, synths and keys with aplomb. If Pacific Standard Time is Ron’s showcase, then the bizarre Stravnisky’s Only Hit, for all of the compositional nous that has gone into it, is Russell’s moment to shine, his vocals flying around the register over a backdrop that sounds like an LSD-inspired meltdown in a concert hall. The first half of the album comes to a halt with the pulsing kick drum and edgy synths of Left Out In The Cold, a track with a chorus so addictive it should come with a federal warning.
Opening up the album’s second half, Self-Effacing resets the playing board with another acoustic belter, although it builds up quite a head of steam. On the flip side, the strong soaked beauty of One For The Ages has a strong emotional core, despite being dressed up in synth-pop clothing. Not content to stay still, the bizarrely titled Onomata Pia sounds like something the Oompa Loompas would sing if they spent their time jamming on The White Album. Following a pseudo-serious intro, the jabbering noise of iPhone may well be the greatest track that Supertramp never wrote, although, with its chorus of “put your fucking iPhone down and listen to me”, perhaps not. Despite its dark title, The Existential Threat comes across as the love child of Gabriel-era Genesis and a Commodore 64, and it’s every bit as strange as that sounds. With the album hurtling towards its conclusion, the silicone stomp of Nothing Travels Faster Than The Speed Of Light is a welcome foray into relatively straight forward pop music before Please Don’t Fuck Up My World brings the album to an end with an impassioned plea that, with its added choir, sounds like someone beamed a track from Trans onto one of Neil Young’s more recent, eco-conscious albums. It marks the end of a typically diverse set.
Weirdly progressive, often with a wry smile and a twinkle in its eye, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip is so much more fun, so much more vital than an offering from a duo with fifty years on the clock has any right to be. Stylistically it’s all over the shop, throwing everything from acoustic guitars to grand pianos into the mix, and yet it hangs together beautifully. The year’s best pop album? You’d better believe it. 9/10
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