'The Girl is Crying in Her Latte' by Sparks
After the recent, deserved attention Sparks have gotten—especially from two movies in 2021: The Sparks Brothers, Edgar Wright’s magnificent fanboy documentary; and Annette, directed by Leos Carax from a story and music by Sparks—Ron and Russell Mael, a.k.a. Sparks, remind us that they are best heard, even though they cut refined figures when seen.
Their 26th studio album, The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, continues the varied excellence established by other 21st-century Sparks albums like 2017’s Hippopotamus and 2006’s Hello Young Lovers. If earlier albums sounded and felt like more stylistically united entities, later albums riot and revel in genre-jumping.
If there’s an element that gives Latte tracks musical similarity, it’s electronics: handling the keyboards as usual, Ron utilizes an intelligent range of tones and textures, including the bright ringtone Muzak of “Escalator,” the music-box bells of “Take Me for a Ride,” the martial rush-hour bleating of “We Go Dancing,” and the beehive-with-subwoofer buzzing of the title track.
Russell, handling the vocals as usual, maintains the sense of androgyny he’s carried easily for more than a half-century while he also lends a strange allure to a mature quaver that is not unlike the cultured phrasing of Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis.
Which is a curious comparison, but this is Sparks, whose most consistent trait might be the ability to build fantastical worlds within their songs. The aforementioned “Take Me for a Ride” only seems to be a chase-scene love story with orchestral trimmings; “Veronica Lake” converts an “Eminence Front” loop into a Word War II tale of female industry; and “When You Leave” canters through a list of all the fun partygoers will have…once you’ve exited.
With both brothers producing and Russell engineering and mixing, Latte shows off their shared ear for clarity and shared skill at askew catchiness. They are dance, rock, classical, and above all pop experts. Sparks have changed in so many ways across 26 long-players, and yet they haven’t changed anything crucial.
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Sparks perform July 6, Pabst Theater.
