For a band that’s spent over five decades zigzagging across genres, aesthetics, and technologies, Sparks’ latest album feels like a consolidation of everything they know how to do. But don’t mistake that for stagnation: Ron and Russell Mael aren't looking backward or coasting forward, they're just being Sparks, in their fourth (fifth?) act, and sounding as alive and strangely grounded as ever.
Sonically, MAD! is less abrasive and claustrophobic than The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, with a more balanced mix of electronics and flesh-and-blood instrumentation. It breathes: guitars and bass are allowed to groove, and strings aren’t just ornamental but integral to the song structures. On the lyrical front, it’s pure Sparks, zooming in on the trivial and winding up with the transcendent. Ron Mael still has the unique ability to pick up a cultural lint ball off the floor and spin it into a shimmering observation on the human condition—brand loyalty, insomnia, religious blind spots, the long wait at a red light, all grist for his eccentric mill. And Russell Mael, in typically stunning vocal form, gets the space to deliver it all front and center, his theatrical yelp-croon falsetto equal parts pop-operetta and bemused demiurge narrator.
Sparks have long mined the mundane for gold, and here they dig deep into the rituals, reflexes, and offbeat rhythms of everyday life. Take “JanSport BackPack”, which on first glance sounds like a cheeky corporate jingle waiting for a licensing deal, but quickly unfolds into a meditation on identity-through-utility. The multitracked Russell, bolstered by what may or may not be an accordion, elevates the object to mythic status: the holy knapsack of memory and allegiance.
Then there’s “A Long Red Light”, where the ennui of waiting at an intersection becomes something epic. Synths approximate traffic sounds while strings swell like a Bernard Herrmann score. In anyone else’s hands, it would be a throwaway gag. In Sparks’ world, it’s both a laugh and a lump in the throat.
“I-405 Rules” walks the same tightrope, an ode to a freeway most associate with gridlock and despair. But here, cinematic strings and Russell’s ecstatic delivery suggest the Maels really do find something poetic in the Californian sprawl. Leave it to them to find beauty in a source of frustration and road rage.
And “In Daylight”, a minor key gem about hiding from rejection until nightfall, threads the personal and the universal through image and tone. There's humor, yes—but also genuine pathos.
Several tracks here grapple, with varying degrees of subtlety, with belief systems—secular and otherwise. “Don’t Dog It”is all jittery strings, prominent bass, and a cold-wave melody, anchoring what may be Sparks’ most deadpan takedown of unquestioning religious adherence.
Meanwhile, “A Little Light Banter” delivers Sparks’ version of pillow talk: meaningless conversation as a salve for existential dread. Framed with strummy 90s guitars that almost trick you into expecting R.E.M., it soon reveals its music-hall DNA. It’s intimate, slightly absurd, and, without reading too much into it, possibly somewhat autobiographical. A rare glimpse at domestic Ron, perhaps?
And then there’s the bedroom psychodrama of “Hit Me, Baby”: hard rock guitars and slinky bass carry the story of someone so unable to wake up they ask their partner towel, hit them, baby. Somehow it’s funny and oddly romantic, and only Sparks could get away with that.
“My Devotion”, with its McCartney bounce and sugary melody, feels like a straightforward love song… until it doesn't. By the final verses, it teeters into morbidity. Has the beloved passed away? Is this devotion or delusion? The ambiguity lingers, like the best Sparks tracks, well after the final chord.
Similarly haunting is “Drowned in a Sea of Tears,” a mournful melody and an ultimately harrowing depiction of concealed depression.
“Do Things My Own Way” opens the album like a mission statement. With its minimal mantra and shards of electronic noise, this is a Sparks manifesto, as confirmed by Ron during the band's Q& A in Paris.
This is Sparks playing all their strengths. There’s the baroque chamber pop of Lil’ Beethoven, the disco/dance mischief of No. 1 In Heaven or Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, the electric wit of Kimono My House, all repackaged into something fresh. It doesn’t sound like Sparks are revisiting their past but like they are able to play every version of themselves at once.
And so, when the album closes with the grand, sweeping “Lord Have Mercy”, it lands not just as a stirring, gospel-tinged anthem—complete with a kick-ass guitar solo—but as the culmination of the Sparks project writ large. It’s earnest, even spiritual, yet still unmistakably them: devotion laced with a wink, profundity pulled from the absurd. No doubt it will serve as the emotional and sonic climax of their upcoming tour, a grand finale that brings everything full circle—finding big truths in tiny, strange places, and doing it all, as ever, their own way.
Genre: Pop/Rock
Release date: May 23rd, 2025
Produced by: Sparks
Label: Transgressive
Rating: 7/10
