You think Stephin Merritt was cool for mentioning Steve Earle, Charo and GWAR in one Magnetic Fields song? On their latest modern-day medicine show, these gluttonous Texans namedrop Jesus Lizard, Sonic Youth, Daniel Johnston and Don Walser, soulify Willie Dixon's "Insane Asylum," parody "I Am the Walrus" and quote "Iron Man," not to mention such faux copyrights as Chickasaw "Nubby" Johnson's 1869 blues "I Shot My Cadillac," Grubby Chubby and The Mooners' classic doo-wop "On My Face" and Irön Tööl's march-or-die "Nipple Confusion." And yet their failure to concentrate this voracious appetite on each track makes the Spankers such a chronically frustrating band. They always seem halfway to the great unpretentious postmodern mantle of Beats International and the Pooh Sticks. Too much of this album is given over to shoop-doop-dee-doop love songs as changes of pace when our media-mad sensoriums should be flattened at every twist and crawl. Few instances of playing and especially singing today combine the reverent and the disrespectful so assiduously. But how 'bout a whole album of favorite records next time out?
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