Matthew Sweet - Modern Art - Missing Piece - MIP 0005-2

Nearly thirty years back Matthew Sweet formed the short-lived Commuity Trolls with REM's Michael Stipe. Two decades ago his third album, Girlfriend, set a rarely bettered benchmark for jangly guitar power-pop craftsmanship.
Sweet's striven in its shadow since, to slowly diminishing returns, like some latter-day Brian Wilson, pursuing phantom pop perfection in a sandpit full of slowly dissolving sugar.
But Modern Art ditches the euphoria for a marked mood change, its tumbling twelve string cascades, baroque piano parts, and summer romance harmonies in uncharacteristically melancholic mode, as Sweet quietly unshackles himself from the chains of expectation.

(27/11/11)