Psychocandy is the last significant event in popular music production. That's the last thing I've heard which sounds blaringly original. I haven't heard anything else since then that says, "this is a new way of making records."

That's what Stephin Merritt had to say in a recent interview with Drowned in Sound when asked about the influences for his latest album, the aptly titled Distortion. Now, I’m not sure I entirely agree with him, but when I try to think of other albums and artists that are “blaringly original” I stumble across Radiohead and maybe post-rock behemoths like Godspeed! or Mogwai. And then that’s a bit of a push. So, perhaps Merritt's right. However, I’m not sure it’s an adequate premise for an album of Merritt’s own. Distortion is as Distortion does. This is a million miles from the epic 69 Love Songs as you can get and bares no resemblance to his most recent project, the music to accompany the Lemony Snicket stories. Each track is bathed in swathes of feedback, Merritt keen to stress that even the piano feedbacks, which is apparently a first in popular music.The problem with Distortion, for me at least, is that it doesn’t always work. It smacks of a glorified tribute album. Perhaps Merritt would have been better of just reworking Psychocandy than seeing his stock fall by trying his hand at this. It’s not just that the music feels unambitious and boring in places, but his usual way with words, his fantastically graphic lyrics, seem to have left him. “Too Drunk To Dream” is a case in point. Merritt’s 80’s drawl of a vocal echoing “I've got to get too drunk to dream”¦ I've got to get too pissed to miss you” and feels like something a Sixth Form band would come up with. Sure, it’s his usual take on relationship breakdown, but it feels half-arsed.The album as a whole has grown on me over subsequent listens, but I can’t help but feel let down. Sparkles of past glories litter the record, the washing vocals and crackling guitar of “Drive On, Driver”, the 80’s brush of “Xavier Says” with it’s trebly guitars and drums, but these are all sung with female vocals. Merritt’s offerings feel too much like a drunken turn at the karaoke machine.I just find the fuzzy sheen of the production hard to connect to. It’s too cold, too calculated for me to immerse myself in. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m beginning to get a little tired of the constant Jesus and Mary Chain / My Bloody Valentine hero worship that seems to have dominated the music press in the last five years. In my opinion Distortion feels like such a waste of Merritt’s talents. Recently he’s mentioned that if all he’s remembered for is the three-disc epic of 69 Love Songs then he’ll die a happy man. Perhaps that’s the problem; he’s already resting on his laurels. 55%Links The Magnetic Fields [official site] [buy it]