Hi, everyone. Giggens here, and it is an absolute honor to review the latest LP from legendary pop art duo, Sparks, Mad!

For over 50 years now, the Mael brothers have been challenging and expanding and transforming and transcending what it means to write a pop song and what necessarily a pop song is or should be. They've never settled, they've never gotten comfortable, they've never rested on whatever laurels they might have. They've always had a finger on the pulse of what's happening and staying so current, still ahead of the curve. They have inspired countless bands over the last decades.

They continue to innovate themselves and redefine themselves, and they've never sounded stale or tired. Mad! is their 28th full-length studio LP. How do you even do that? It finds the group, again, looking at the world, looking within, talking to those voices from within, and trying their best to stay confident as things are difficult, but they're sounding as vibrant and as hungry as ever. Literally the musical equivalent to the fountain of youth.

I hate to bring age into this, but I feel like it's important because these guys are pushing 80, and you would never know. They don't sound dated. They don't sound like they're making music that was popular when they were 25. They're making stuff that sounds like now, which they've always done. You know what you're going to get if you buy a new Ringo album or a new Paul McCartney album or a Rolling Stones album. You know the flavor that it's going to be. With Sparks, you don't. Every album is like, What's going to happen this time?

I mean, obviously, there's a lane for artists to be in their 70s and '80s and just relax and chill. You don't have to always push yourself. But thankfully, we have Sparks to show us what the future sounds like.

And speaking of what the future sounds like, they literally do things their own way, which should just be their MO at this point. A wonderful opening track. I love the struggling guitars on this one, the nonstop rhythm, the rich clean production on this thing. The whole album sounds fantastic, but this song repeats the title like a mission statement, like a mantra. There's a couple of lines, and then they say, "Do things my own way." And there's bits where the music stops or they take a pause. And when they jump back into it, you feel that hypnotic pulse bring you back, and you don't want it to let go. It's a grip that is welcome. The searching guitars, the fuzz, the grit. The track digs in with this confident determination. It's blunt and to the point. It's a declaration of independency, and truly an exciting way to open this album.

"Jansport Backpack" follows this one up, and I have read probably more deeply into this song than I should. On the surface, it's about a girl walking away wearing a Jansport backpack, and that line is repeated probably a million times in this track. But in classic Sparks sense, they'll take an image or an idea and let the listener go off with it and not just give you everything surface level. As this song builds into this parade-esque celebration as it marches on down the street, I really feel like lyrically, it's about a conversation ending with someone and you're holding on to those last words, whether they were loving or whether they were biting or acerbic or things hurt or you feel wonderful. But as this person turns and walks away and you're trying to hold those thoughts in your head, the last thing you see, in other words, the Jansport on the back of her backpack.

And so that's the last moment you have with this person. That's the last image, the last thought, the last words that you'll read from this person are Jansport backpack. And so it's like a rumination just running through this person's brain over and over and over again. Oh, my God, she wore a Jansport backpack. What else are we talking about? There's nothing personal anymore. It's a commodity. It's a corporation. Everything that went down previously is almost like it was raptured. And the empty feeling that comes with remembering the backpack. It's heavy, man.

"Hit Me Baby" is a really good chugging rocker about literally wanting to be woken up when things get tough. I love the way it runs into the next song, one of my favorites on the album, "Running Up a Tab at the Hotel for the Fab", which – they're probably one of the only bands in the world to rhyme "fromage" with living large." Man, I love that. The fat, shimmering, stabbing synth blast throughout this thing give the song a playfully creepy vibe. I love that the song glows the whole way through. It's a slightly crazy sounding song, which works for the title Mad!, but literally for me, it feels like a song about a couple going to a hotel using the bar services and the room services and just hanging out with all the rich people. Obviously, knowing Sparks, there might be a deeper meaning to this song or deeper interpretation, but sometimes they're a bit on the nose, and that just would be a funny song if this is all that it was about.

"My Devotion" comes up next, and this is a really pretty song. This sounds like it could have been a massive hit in 1986. It's got this bouncing '80s sheen to it, and it feels so from the heart. It's so warm. It's so honest and vulnerable. In the first part of the song, it feels like, yeah, this is a a person, a relationship. But as the song goes on, they bring up other things. Maybe it's a devotion to a job that you have that they're a little puzzled while you might be devoted to a job, or maybe it's a faithfulness to an interest or a hobby. Whatever you're devoted to, it's okay to go all in on it because it means you care.

"Don't Dog It" follows that up next. This is a great song about looking for sage advice from wise people. The advice is "Don't dog it". If you're not from America, I know that phrase might not make sense, but when you dog it, it means you're taking it slow. It's not going as fast as you want it to. It's a song about focusing on your goals and tightening your grip on making sure that you're following through on them and not giving up. Do what you want to do, but do it at a decent speed. Don't just take it too slow because maybe you'll miss out on something important.

"In Daylight" is an interesting song. It's not one of my favorites on the album, but lyrically, it's about how when things are dark, obviously, you can't see. And so the mystery is there. You can get away with something. But when the sun is out and it's on your face, you have to own up. So maybe it's a song about being more honest with yourself and being more in tune with your feelings and being okay with being vulnerable. Or again, I could just be reading too much into it, and it's about daylight and sunlight.

"I-405 Rules" is... Only Sparks could write a song about a freeway and make it the coolest sounding song. It's literally a song about all the roads you can drive around the world and how great they are. But the best one is the I-405. That one rules. It gives you that feeling of the wind in your hair. You're pounding down the pavement, you're flying through, you're on the 405. You got that dizzy, buzzing feel. Yeah, this is a very spark song.

The next couple of songs take a little bit of a slower approach, but "A Long Red Light" is exactly what it sounds like, which I think is a really cool lyrical play on traffic lights. When you're sitting at a red light, you have to wait for the green. You can't just make the green happen. Sometimes you have to take a pause and just sit until it's okay to cross the street or move forward in life. When there's a red light, obviously, cars are going the way that you can't go. You're allowing things to happen because it has to go that way, and you can't change how that works, which flows into "Drowned in a Sea of Tears", which is actually a really sad song.

Lyrically, it's about wanting to help more and to reach out more, but there's only so much you can do and accepting that fact and swallowing that bitter pill that no matter how you might want something to change for somebody or a situation, you can't do it all yourself. As humans with empathy, it's hard to accept that.

"A Little Bit of Light Banter" and the last song, "Lord Have Mercy", are wonderful ways to wrap up this record because they're upbeat, they're happy. "A Little Bit of Light Banter" is a great title, number one, because it feels like a light pop rock song. It's really chirpy, it's really bouncy. You really get involved with it. You can just imagine bouncing around at the Sparks concert of this one. Lyrically, it's about you get to the end of the day and you're with your special someone and you just chat about the fun things that you want to think about and not how hard the world is, and all the crap you went through at work, and all that got cut you off in traffic, or your toast came out wrong, or the dog ran away, all the bad stuff that happened. It's gone. Now you can focus on the happy good stuff, a little bit of light banter, and then sleep deep, and then things were peaceful for a while.

I really like how this song transitions into "Lord Have Mercy" because I feel like they're two of the same, but the light banter song is exactly that. It's a much more lighter version, a light-hearted version of devotion and love and caring for someone, whereas "Lord Have Mercy" is jumping into the deep end of absolute the richness of a fulfilling relationship.

There's a really great line on this track. I'm going to read it. "You sing it softly / If I had to call it something / I'd call it art." Beautiful line. It almost reminds me of Franz Ferdinand, which is cool because they worked together a long time ago. But this song is just open and honest. It's pining for comfort and knowing where to find it. Like I said, it's definitely an extension of the last song, but it has that grand finale feeling like the final expression of love before this thing closes. I like how as it fades out, there's a really great guitar solo that happens, which sticks out because there aren't a lot of guitar solos on this record. It wraps up the album and ends like a warm hug, and you're left feeling like, wow, that is one of the best Sparks albums I've heard.

Sparks, to quote their own song, have always done things their own way. On this album, I can't believe they've been making music for 50 years, and I can't believe it's the same band from the '70s because they've never sounded dated. They always sound vibrant and fresh and current, and they know what's happening. They know what's going on. Nothing about them screams oldies act. It's always been like, oh, a new Sparks album. Okay, what's happening with them? Because we got to catch up.

The writing is sharp. The lyrics are thoughtful and provoking. It's a very heartfelt album. The playing is spirited. They sound so focused and driven. Some artists are lucky to be around for a few years and make some really great albums in the span of four or five years. But here's Sparks, 50 years deep, just as relevant as ever and just as vital as ever. A career highlight and one you need to experience I can't wait to pick this one up on vinyl. But Sparks, Mad! – I'm feeling a very strong eight on this album.

Anthony Fantano. Sparks. Forever.