As the end-of-year lists polls and lists start to roll in, Ariel Pink is clear candidate for topping the categories Indie’s Most Hated Man and Troll Of The Year. It all started with an accusation that current Madonna is not as good as classic Madonna (which is fact, surely?) and went down a slippery slope from there. It was a middle amusing sideshow that quickly became as boring as Mark Kozelek’s war of words with The War On Drugs, and a minor distraction from the actual music, which is well on par with Pink’s previous two Haunted Graffiti albums.
After an initial one-hour-plus sitting, first impressions are that pom pom is a remarkable album but a victim of its excessive length. Like the latest Foxygen album, this Magnum opus gets lost in its eccentricities during its third quarter and the results are variable. Pink at least knows when to keep a silly song short, with novelties like Nude Beach A Go-Go and Jello-O clocking in at a merciful two minutes each. A few more spins of pom pom and this erratic stage starts to make more sense in the context of the album, however, and the power of the sequencing is revealed as you make uneasy alliances with some songs and fall in love with others.
In addition to the wild, experimental Pink of old, there are actually some great pop songs on here. There’s nothing quite like Before Today’s classic Round & Round; instead, a stream of songs follow the lead of that same album’s Goth/pop thriller Fright Night (Nevermore). Four Shadows is a hammy horror with verses full of foreboding and an Addams Family-style exchange in the chorus: “Only darkness in the night/Things that go bump in the night.”Kicking off with a sleazy “Yeaaaaaaaah”, Lipstick is a sleazy, creepy noir, with windpipes fluttering around Pink’s leering “Where are the girls?” Not Enough Violence informs us it’s “penetration time tonight” to what sounds like a lost Bauhaus or Sisters of Mercy backing track. Put Your Number In My Phone is the album’s most accessible song in terms of composition and lyrical content – this and the synth-soaked One Summer Night provide a romantic, hopeful break from the depraved, desperate Pink of the majority of the album (he’s newly single and it shows).
Some of Pink’s best material to date falls at the album’s end, forming a sparser, more serious end section, it’s a change of pace that resonates after a run of songs that hark back to Pink’s earlier work and bear a strong influence from cult producer Kevin Fowley. Well, there’s still animal noises and declarations of “I’m not a toad” on the oddly charming Exile On Frog Street, but Picture Me Gone is a new high that strives for simplicity and restrained emotion, while final song Dayzed Inn Daydreams has a genuine ‘ride into the sunset’ feel. He may not be everyone’s hero but he’s certainly never dull.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Four Shadows
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: JOHN MAUS, MONTERO, FRANK ZAPPA
In A Word: Attention-seeking
