Schizophrenic Spider? (Good Morning Spider - Sparklehorse)

Member Name: JCRoberts

Product:	Good Morning Spider - Sparklehorse
Date:	01/11/02 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Exceptionally beautiful

Disadvantages: Production may put some people off, Thrashy songs don't work as well

Written when Mark Linkous couldn't decide whether he was into punk rock ("Pig"), lo-fi ("Happy Man") or whether to wear the troubled troubadour badge ("Painbirds"), a stranger collection of songs you're unlikely to find unless you've got the new Aphex Twin album.

It's testament to Linkous' ability that every song sits happily next to the preceding and following ones. Opening with the punky thrash of "Pig", the uninitiated could be forgiven for thinking that they were in for a wall of distortion and feedback over the next 60 minutes, and would almost certainly wonder what was going on when 3 acoustic tracks follow.

The sparse, gentle "Saint Mary" must rank as one of the album highlights, Linkous and an acoustic guitar combining to create an immensely beautiful song. Elsewhere, the idiosyncratic production comes to the fore on "Happy Man", half of which passes at half volume (yes, it is meant to be like that) before erupting for the final chorus.

Linkous is at his best when he's not trying to make stadium rock, he does quiet very well - far much more than strumming out of time and moaning about the weather - and there are songs here that are so beautiful I defy any normal person not to be moved to tears by them, "Hundreds Of Sparrows" is the one that always gets me :)

I've had this album four years now, and I still don't understand how or why it works and the more I think about it the more I realise I'm not really bothered as long as Linkous maintains his extraordinary gift for songwriting.

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