Vivadixiesubmarinetran smissionplot by Sparklehorse (Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot - Sparklehorse)

Member Name: Lichfield1979

Product:	Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot - Sparklehorse
Date:	12/09/08 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Someday I Will Treat You Good.

Disadvantages: May be an acquired taste.

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot by Sparklehorse (1995)

One - Homecoming Queen

Anybody who begins their recording career with the line "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" has already got me in stitches before we've barely begun, and then he namedrops The Magnetic Fields, so I think we know what territory we're in. The woebegone electro-acoustic backing wake seems to me to be struggling to keep a straight face. The vocalist sounds like he's at death's door and cryptically gasps something about a homecoming queen. Who wants to pay for a private detective to figure out what the hell he's talking about?

Two - Weird Sisters

Richard III in the first song and now this song title sounds to me like a Macbeth reference. Someone likes the classics. It's also a fairly sombre affair although this time with a beat to it. The rhythm guitar lumbers along and the vocal is more conventional. The lyrics are about being eaten by parasites in the moonlight when you're dead and possibly something about an inheritance but your guess is as good as mine and I've actually heard the song. Musically it sounds a bit like Radiohead would have done in 1995 - if they couldn't afford much equipment because they didn't leave their bedrooms much.

Three - 850 Double Pumper Holley

This is just thirty-six seconds of a tape recording being rewound on a voice repeating some sort of technological detail. Somebody will have to explain it to me.

Four - Rainmaker

This song has a chorus! And the bass line is catchy! Vocal is distorted but kind of sweet. The guitars are dishevelled but cheerful. It's kind of got riffs and melodic hooks! I really like the line "sometimes you feel just like a stone tossed into the deep" but, and I'm really sorry about this, the song's kind of elliptical, so I couldn't possibly tell you what it's about exactly.

Five - Spirit Ditch

"The owls have been talking to me but I'm sworn to secrecy". Mate, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that's a Twin Peaks reference and that you're not TOTALLY BLOODY CRAZY YOU LUNATIC!!!! I think he also references the lyrics to After The Gold Rush by Neil Young, so maybe he's a cool guy, but if he wants his records back, and he says he does, I say give them to him, and don't look him in the eye! In all honesty though the music here is sad and wonderful and understated. The answer phone message or whatever it is works well under laid at the end.

Six - Tears On Fresh Fruit

Abrasive guitar riffs and sneering punk vocals all through lots of distortion but it is kind of deceptively melodic and short at two minutes. The lyrics sound sinister and detached: "I couldn't do nothing but watch as her tears fell on fresh fruit / behind the boney walls of my skull / there was playing a lullaby". The song ends by repeating the word "la" twenty three times.

Seven - Saturday

This tender ballad might be about visiting a loved one in hospital every Saturday, possibly as a child. The arrangement is really raw and stripped down but sounds fantastic. He also compares keyboards to horses' teeth.

Eight - Cow

This is the kind of song that signals greatness. He may have a peculiar way of going about things earlier on the record but don't be fooled for a moment this guy doesn't know exactly what he's doing. The electric guitar sound is a cross between August and Everything After and The Bends and then when that dies down the song keeps going on with bass and harmonica and banjo. For a seven minute song there's practically no lyrics but I like the line "metal teeth of carousels lighting cigars on electric chairs." Mark Linkous and Thom Yorke have actually collaborated on a cover version of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, so I'm not just imagining the corollary.

Nine - Little Bastard Choo Choo

Thirty-nine seconds of various sound effects that make me think of toy trains and kitchens but I think they are using real instruments.

Ten - Hammering The Cramps

This song has a much fuller sound than anything that's come before but although it's texturally rich it still feels quite spacious and distanced and the vocal is very submerged in the mix and sounds quite scratchy. The guitars have a lot of warmth though and the music is melodic but noisy. "Hammering the cramps" is pretty much the only lyric except for a brief Exorcist reference. Again if I were to compare this to anything it would be The Bends although it sounds brighter and more robust. It's got a good punchy rhythm.

Eleven - Most Beautiful Widow In Town

This is an acoustic guitar ballad with a vocal sung in his natural voice. The lyrics are about a man who can't look at a wedding portrait hung on an old woman's wall, perhaps because he knew her many years ago but never became her husband. It's an incredibly evocative song and the simple thick and rising guitar work at the end is perfect after the poignant honesty of the vocal.

Twelve - Heart Of Darkness

An alt-country song that makes bittersweet use of a pedal steel guitar as Linkous gives another rural vocal from outer space with sweet wooziness. The Joseph Conrad reference is obvious. In the lyrics a couple are dancing in a parking lot and then she falls asleep with her head on his chest as they watch the sunset. Head and heart and sun are unified in a figurative dream. This song is under two minutes and pretty much perfect.

Thirteen - Ballad Of A Cold Lost Marble

Repetitive pounding drums like a building site over what sounds like a creaking floorboard or a chainsaw. But it's only forty-six seconds so that's okay, and again, I think they are using real musical instruments to make descriptive everyday noises, which is pretty clever actually.

Fourteen - Someday I Will Treat You Good

This is just a masterpiece of a pop song, one of the absolute best of the 1990s. Begins with some guitars that aren't amplified and a singer sustaining notes that aren't faded up properly but it's just a throwaway intro from a rehearsal or something even if it sounds good for thirteen seconds. The full band launch into quick tempo rock music with the bass skipping along and guitar texture weaving in and out of percussive rhythms after a big riff to start. The vocals are soft and throaty but immediate. He's suspicious of his girlfriend. Suddenly we're into the chorus. "I left my baby on the side of the highway / She just couldn't see things my way / Someday I will treat you good / Someday I will treat you fine". The words to the second verse are great. "Well I'm shrinking bones in the sun / Won't you tell me why that the beautiful ones are always crazy." And we slam back into the chorus and the whole time the guitars have been fuzzy pop perfection as the song just hurtles along and now there's a spooky slow guitar solo beneath the frantic rhythm section and we repeat the first verse and chorus with a melody and guitar line that just seems to have been rising higher and higher as the song progresses and then finally the drums break everything to a halt with a final clatter of guitar feedback...

Fifteen - Sad & Beautiful World

More sad and beautiful alt-country music that sounds bemused by the passage of time and the sting of how we spend it.

Sixteen - Gasoline Horseys

After fifteen seconds of static, country acoustic guitar twangs gravely and Linkous sings in gravelly cobwebs until the guitar grows warm and full and the voice pours into vulnerable focus for the final minute. The lyrics are touchingly apocalyptic "Yes your hair smells like sunshine today / Gasoline horses will take us away"

Summary: First Sparklehorse album.