Over the course of nearly 30 albums and 54 years, Russell and Ron Mael have had plenty of time to perfect the DNA of a Sparks song. During those multiple decades of songcraft, the Maels have seen tastes change, styles come and go, and despite weathering periods both fecund and fallow in popularity, the septuagenarian brothers have entered their final act riding high.
New record MAD! is another triumph for the Maels, featuring more of the synth-pop and art rock that has defined much of their 21st century output. Their popularity has been on the rise ever since Edgar Wright’s 2021 documentary The Sparks Brothers ushered in a new generation of fans and now MAD! arrives almost exactly two years after The Girl is Crying in Her Latte dropped, which charted #7 in the U.K.
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Does MAD! feature the darkly humorous lyrics that are hallmarks of Ron’s writing? Check out doozies like “Hit me harder/ Can’t wake up/ Hit me like Tyson/ Still it’s not enough.” Are there more insidious, circular songs that lodge themselves in your head? Just listen to “A Little Bit of Light Banter” one time and you will be singing it for days.
MAD! plays like a sampler of what Sparks does best. Ron, who turns 80 in August, has always been a master of writing songs about cast-off lovers and unrequited romance. (Just check out “Tits” from Indiscreet (1975).) This time around, “JanSport Backpack” is from the perspective of a man who is so used to seeing his girlfriend walk away, he can only view her as a complete entity with that titular accoutrement strapped on her back. Meanwhile, the frenetic “I-405 Rules” is a classically madcap ode to a highway, while the plodding “A Long Red Light” is a complaint against…being stuck at a red traffic light.
Despite being 76 years old, Russell’s voice is still honey-sweet; his heavenly falsetto matched by new, lower registers on some tracks here. And Ron’s synths can range from stately to nutty to sounding like a harpsichord over the span of just one track. While the synths recede a bit on the guitar-heavy lead single “Do Things My Own Way,” Ron does heavy lifting on songs like “Running Up the Tab at the Hotel for the Fab,” which was likely inspired by Anna Delvey, a woman who posed as a European heiress and infiltrated New York’s socialite scene.
While many of the songs on MAD! are archly funny, tracks like “Drowned in a Sea of Tears,” which explores the perils of suppressing emotion, feel quite sincere for Russell and Ron Mael. Meanwhile, the album-closing “Lord Have Mercy” is a love song, plain and simple, with a singalong chorus.
“Gonna do things my own way,” Russell intones as the album opens. Hasn’t Sparks always done things their own way? MAD! wouldn’t be half as great otherwise.
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