Sparklehorse – ‘Bird Machine’ album review: a bittersweet posthumous celebration
It’s almost impossible to know the full scope of an artist until after they’ve made their final work. In the world of music, constant evolution is taken for granted nowadays because, frankly, it’s a given. If you’re not striving to find a new angle on your personal sound and style, you might as well pack it in. That was the main thought I had when listening to what is now officially the final Sparklehorse album, along with this thought: it’s incredibly sad and unfair that someone like Mark Linkous had to leave this earth just as he was finding the best side of himself.
For more than a decade, Sparklehorse was one of indie rock’s most curious beasts. Combining elements of folk, rock, and singer-songwriter music, the group was the perfect medium for Linkous’ jagged observations and dark wit. As elements of psychedelia and country came and went from the band’s sound, Linkous only seemed to get concise and direct with his music. By the time he began work on what would eventually become Bird Machine, Linkous was staring down some of his most straightforward and adaptable songs ever.
“Around the time, he was listening to The Kinks, MF Doom, Grandaddy, and the Beatles,”
Linkous’ brother Matt recalled about the sessions. “He said that he wanted to make a straight-up pop record like Buddy Holly. ‘That would be brilliant,’ I said. ‘Just get the best rhythm section you can find and hit record.’”
Fans have already had the opportunity to mourn Linkous following his 2010 suicide. That mostly came in the form of Dark Night of the Soul, Sparklehorse’s collaborative album with Danger Mouse that came out four months after Linkous’ death. Most of the reviews for that album called the work “bittersweet”, but that word is probably better saved for Bird Machine, whose combination of pop melodies, fuzz guitar, and haunted visions plays more thoroughly into that dichotomy.
The crackling major-chord romp ‘It Will Never Stop’ sets the tone by placing Linkous’ voice in some kind of robotic prison. A pop punk classic in the making, ‘It Will Never Stop’ also has elements of electronica and lo-fi, proving that Linkous was actively trying to experiment up to the very end. ‘Kid Ghosts’ is near-ambient, with only various electronic buzzes and synthetic textures backing up Linkous’ detached vocals. It’s also here that the first of many tough-to-hear lines crop up: “I came to drink more whiskey than water.”
With a blood alcohol content of over 0.4% at the time of his death, Linkous was certainly courting a specific kind of darkness. To hear that play out in his music is nothing new – Linkous was an artist who connected with people because he refused to hold back. But that doesn’t make it any easier when these moments pop up on Bird Machine. For as much optimism and positivity that finds its way into the album, it almost seems inevitable that the starker revelations will be the ones that most listeners will be forced to remember.
After Linkous’ death, it was up to his brother Matt and sister-in-law Melissa to assemble the material that became Bird Machine. How they managed to put together songs about dead drunks in the snow (‘Evening Star Supercharger’), passing into the great beyond (‘Hello Lord’) and the random cruelty of life (‘Chaos of the Universe’) is anyone’s guess. That being said, Bird Machine doesn’t sound like a funeral.
Throughout the album, Linkous doesn’t sound like a man on the verge of death. Instead, he sounds revitalized and determined to create something truly great. The loose fun he has on his cover of Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians’ ‘Listening to the Higsons’ is infectious, as is the driving hard rock release of ‘I Fucked It Up’. The latter track also features some of Linkous’ catchiest hooks that have ever appeared in a Sparklehorse album. It’s not just the slower moments on Bird Machine that can hit the hardest: it’s also when Linkous was obviously sounding and feeling great during these recordings.
If you’re looking for a true sense of the end, Bird Machine has more than its fair share of those moments. ‘Falling Down’, ‘Daddy’s Gone’, and ‘Everybody’s Gone to Sleep’ are songs about leaving, packing up, and shipping out. You can’t read into that too much since all of Sparklehorse’s material has that same kind of floating finality to it. But now that it’s real, it doesn’t make it any less powerful to hear Linkous sing about the end more than a decade after he faced it.
If this is really the last of what Sparklehorse will give to the world, then Linkous can rest easy knowing that he crafted a truly brilliant final statement. Matt and Melissa Linkous have assembled Bird Machine not just with love and care, but also with a true artist’s vision. The lingering notes of ‘Stay’ are some that will resonate and haunt in equal measure for a good long while. For an artist with as much depth as Mark Linkous, nothing else could be more appropriate.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out New Music Newsletter
All the latest New Music from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.