This band had a big impression on me when I was a young very impressionable school boy back in ’74. The release of Kimono My House, and especially the single This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us, blew my tiny little mind. If you can, watch Edgar Wright’s awesome docufilm The Sparks Brothers as it tells the tale of this amazing band. They sort of operate in a musical world of their own. Every now and then that world seems to align perfectly with what’s happening at the time.
This album was the follow up to Kimono and was also released in ’74. That’s what bands did back then – not like today when you can wait 5 years for your favourite band to record an album. I would dare suggest that Sparks are one of the ultimate Prog rock bands as they change styles and sounds and constantly evolve. Yes it’s pop, but not as we know it. As The Beach Boys did before them, they tried to innovate within a format that can be throwaway at times and has a very fickle audience.
My favourites on this record are the superb Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth, and Something For The Girl With Everything – both are superb mid seventies pop tunes with great arrangements, but they sound as though they could be from the now.
8.5/10 from The Grooveman.
