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| It’s been a long wait for Sparklehorse fans. Five years on from It’s A Wonderful Life, long-suffering genius Mark Linkous has finally returned with a new album. Doubtless, there have been sections of the fan community who feared some of the magic may have been lost. Thankfully, and indeed predictably, such fears were unfounded. Dreamt For Light Years… is a truly exceptional piece of work |
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Anyone familiar with Linkous’s work will know the drill. Incredible pop songs, often painfully sad, that sound as if they have fallen magically into place rather than being written. He’s one of the few gifted individuals in the world who can make fantastically direct songwriting look like the easiest thing in the world.
As soon as the opening guitar line emerges on ‘Don’t Take My Sunshine Away’, you just know it’s going to make the wait worthwhile. And as album openers go, you don’t often get better than this. A glorious melody, soaring strings and a dirty lead guitar all combine to create a remarkable aural spectacle. From there, the high standard continues, from the jerky melancholy of ‘Getting It Wrong’ to the spiky ‘Ghost In The Sky’ to ‘It’s Not So Hard’, in which Linkous not only gets away with singing like Brian Molko, he makes it sound like a good idea.
This record also has in its favour the best song Linkous has ever written. ‘See The Light’ is his finest effort at making music that manages to be uplifting and achingly, desperately sad at the same time. There are those, myself included, who would argue that’s the most powerful thing a musician can do. I very much doubt anyone will do a better job than this in 2006.
Obviously, not everything can be from the same top drawer. That would just be odd. Still, even the relatively sub-par ‘Some Sweet Day’, the least impressive song here, would be a highlight on the vast majority of albums. The high number of big name collaborators (including Dangermouse, Tom Waits, Stephen Drodz and Dave Fridmann) all add their unique abilities to the record, but all in a wonderfully subtle way, never imposing on Linkous’s spotlight. And it’s under that spotlight that he makes every second of this album engaging and powerful, right up to the closing bars of the title track, a 12-minute piano-led instrumental closer.
Is this as good as Linkous’s 1999 magnum opus Good Morning Spider? Well, no. But then seeing as so little in the history of recorded music ever has been, it's a little tight-fisted to hold that against it. That Sparklehorse can still make music of this calibre after such a long time away from recording is cause for real celebration from all music fans. It would be wonderful if the wait for album five is a little shorter, but if we get something this life-affirming every five years, we should count ourselves very lucky indeed. |
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| David Tandy - 9/10 |
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Name:
Sol
| Date:
08/09/06 | Reply
Thank god there's still bands like Sparklehorse to prove that good music still exists somewhere... Great review of one of the most underrated bands of the 90s. Everyone should go and see them when they play the Rescue Rooms next month (while we're talking about quality music, could we get a Ben Kweller review soon too?)
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Name:
Lurch
| Date:
09/09/06 | Reply
It's not that good though, is it? Ok, I've only given it a couple of listens, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as good as the first two albums. I will try again though...
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Name:
Tom
| Date:
09/09/06 | Reply
I've got to give it more time but so far I think it's sounding good. Much better than Wonderful Life anyway. Sounds like he's woken up a bit.
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Name:
eric
| Date:
18/09/06 | Reply
it's a wonderful life is one of my favorite albums, and i think this one is pretty good, too. eric www.the7000club.net
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