Ten things about the new Magnetic Fields album

1. It is called Distortion.

2. The cover goes something like this:

3. It is fucking brilliant. Easily Stephin Merritt's best album in about decade (since 69 Love Songs, basically). Not that Stephin Merritt has made many albums in the last decade, but y'know.
4. The production is fuzzy to say the least. Think Yeah! Oh Yeah! or The Flowers She Sent and the Flowers She Said She Sent but standing even closer to the amp.
5. Merritt is indisputably one the greatest living songwriters. I know it, you know it, Tracey Thorn knows it. Which is why, even when some songs sound like they're becoming unlistenable messes, they're still totally amazing pop tracks underneath the umpteen layers of distortion Merritt lays on here.
6. Shirley Simms gets lots to do here. There's a song called California Girls, which feels like the sequel to Yeah! Oh Yeah! The chorus goes "I hate California girls", and eventually Simms starts planning to murder them. It all gets wonderfully dark and fucked up.
7. The album seems a bit too long at 14 tracks, but then you realise that the guy released a record with nearly 70 songs on so, really, you should stop being such a fucking whinger.
8. It sounds like a record the band could have made in the mid-90's. Since no record they released in the mid-90's was worth less than four stars, this cannot be a bad thing.
9. Merritt has made the most depressing Christmas song ever. Track five, Mr. Mistletoe. The campaign for a MF Christmas number one starts here.
10. The best tracks are: Three Way, California Girls, Mr. Mistletoe, Please Stop Dancing, Too Drunk To Dream and The Nun's Litany.

Overall, 4.5 stars. Well done Magnetic Fields.

Distortion is released on the 14th January