The Magnetic Fields – Love at the Bottom of the Sea

Following the profile-raising 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt largely ditched the synthesisers that had characterised great swathes of the Magnetic Fields’ previous output, embarking on a ‘no-synth’ trilogy that culminated in 2010’s Realism. Love at the Bottom of the Sea restores electronics with a vengeance, its opening seconds sounding more like Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream than a ukulele-playing ABBA-fanatic has any right to.

Despite a lengthy tracklisting, the album is a trim 35 minutes, and brevity is an asset; try to extend expertly-crafted Faberge pop like Infatuation (With Your Gyration)’s prefab-OMD or the breezy Andrew in Drag and you risk extinguishing their sparkle. That won’t stop some dismissing Love… as a slight work, but with 69 Love Songs as a career benchmark, anything produced under the Magnetic Fields banner is bound to seem humble by comparison. Taken on its own, ahem, merits, Merritt's added another chapter to a songbook without peer.