The sibling masters of the musical vignette SPARKS are back with their 28th (yes, count ‘em!) album ‘MAD!’.
As with their more recent albums ‘Hippopotamus’, ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ and ‘The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte’ which coincidentally all reached No7 in the UK charts, they remain as enjoyably idiosyncratic as ever with this new offering touching on all aspects of their past from operatic art rock, eccentric chamber pop, synth and new wave.
The history of SPARKS does not need repeating; 53 years since their first album and with ‘The SPARKS Brothers’ documentary winning new fans and seeing the return of others who may have passed through, Russell and Ron Mael show no signs of letting up, pleasing themselves and pleasing their fans.
Setting the scene for ‘MAD!’, it opens with a boisterous word laden art rock statement that SPARKS are gonna ‘Do Things My Own Way’. ‘JanSport Backpack’ provides a vocally layered BEATLES-esque march while ‘Hit Me, Baby’ is a quirky percussive rock out rattling next to whirring synths.
The melodramatics of ‘Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab’ offers a standout mixing chunky synth stabs and surf six string. Also in amongst it all are the pulsing ballad ‘My Devotion’ and the adventurous ‘Don’t Dog It’, although much more restrained, ‘In Daylight’ surprises in a diversion from the busier movements so far. However the archetypical SPARKS returns for the choppy orchestrations of ‘I-405 Rules’ while the cross of electronica, chorals and gratuitous violins on ‘A Long Red Light’ provides another variation on the theme.
Of two more conventionally strummed rock tunes, ‘A Little Bit Of Light Banter’ outshines ‘Drowned In A Sea Of Tears’ as an amusing commentary on hegemonic conversation that musically recalls the pomp and circumstance of 1975’s ‘Indscreet’ album, but the strident arm waving singalong of ‘Lord Have Mercy’ provides a fitting finish that delightfully wouldn’t go amiss in that era’s Eurovision Song Contest.
Throughout ‘MAD!’, the production is top notch; Russell is in fine voice with his extraordinary range while Ron’s arrangements pack in rather a lot into songs which average the 4 minute mark. In ‘MAD!’, the continued combination of the captivating singer and the stoic music man provides a wonderful ambiguous satire of this increasingly crazy world for all to enjoy.
‘MAD!’ is released by Transgressive Records as a CD, cassette, black vinyl LP and lenticular gatefold sleeve with blue vinyl LP. A special deluxe triple gatefold edition with red vinyl LP is exclusive to https://store.allsparks.com/
SPARKS 2025 live dates include:
Kyoto ROHM Theatre (8th June), Osaka Zepp Namba (10th June), Tokyo EX Theater (12th + 13th June), London Eventim Apollo (18th + 19th June), Manchester O2 Apollo (21th + 22th June), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (24th June), Haarlem PHIL (26th June), Brussels Cirque Royal (28th June), Paris La Salle Pleyel (30th June), Cologne Gloria-Theater (1st July), Copenhagen Koncerthuset (3rd July), Stockholm Grona Lund Tivoli (4th July), Berlin Uber Eats (6th July), Milan Teatro degli Arcimboldi (8th July)
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Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Munachi Osegbu
21st May 2025
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