This really does seem to have snuck out into the public domain almost by accident. The Magnetic Fields are a big deal – or at least, I would have thought so – but I have heard barely a whisper about the release of this new album. For some reason, the places where I tend to discuss music have been awfully, awfully quiet about it and I can’t help but wonder if a couple of relatively uninspiring recent records have dampened the interest in The Magnetic Fields in general, or whether the music world is simply becoming less and less interested in the achievements of the oldies*.

The title, Realism, is presumably sarcastic – or at least, it is for the most part. Musically, Stephin Merritt has in the past recorded in a pretty gritty manner, but this is just the opposite. Songs like Hootenanny and Doll’s Tea Party are whimsical to the point of silliness, and neither the music nor the lyrics exhibit any of the harshness you might lead yourself to expect from the title of the Record.

Lyrically it’s not all like that, though, with the opening and closing tracks actually delivering a little of the bleakness I had initially anticipated. In fact, the closing line of the album, about drinking during pregnancy, ends things on a really jarring note, but for the most part the record relies more on wistful regret to deliver its bleaker messages, rather than any kind of unflinching or shocking realism.

This has often been the Magnetic Fields’ way, of course, and despite the lusher orchestrations and less tinny production, this reminds me a fair bit of their ealier stuff, before the grandiosity of 69 Love Songs, the faffing about of I and the growling of Distortion.  I wouldn’t go revering to that cherished old phrase ‘blistering return to form’ or anything, because this album isn’t anything like confrontational enough for that kind of statement, but it does feel like as unified and coherent a record as Merritt has made for ages.  It feels, I suppose, like it isn’t trying too hard, and like it is comfortable with itself.

That impression bleeds through into my relationship with the album as well, in that it is a record I am enjoying in a very unintrusive manner.  It all just kinda works, and it may not rock my world, but I slipped into a very comfortable place with this album surprisingly quickly.

The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Know What to Say

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The Magnetic Fields – The Doll’s Tea Party

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*Except for Uncut of course, for whom it is clearly still March 2001 – Jack and Meg, are they really sister and brother? Who noes?