CD Review: Sparklehorse, "Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain"

Sparklehorse is weirder than dreams. Best known for his songs wrought with fragile creepiness, laden with nightmarish imagery and whispered ambiguities, Mark Linkous—the man behind the Sparklehorse curtain—can haunt with the best of them. In this sense, Sparklehorse’s latest album, “Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain” is more of the same—and, after a five-year hiatus, discovering more of the same was more than I could’ve asked for.

Linkous’s drug problems—safely behind him, he assures reporters—are no secret. But, as with many tortured souls who have sacrificed their bodies for their craft, past tragedies seem to motivate present poetry. Since Sparklehorse’s bizarrely-titled 1995 debut “Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot,” Linkous has experimented with different means of inner exorcism: each resultant work more cohesive than the last.

While all of his songs evoke eerie dreamscapes—horizons of teeth, pianos on fire, dying horses—Linkous’ two most recent albums seem more self-aware. Because of his lyrical opacity, one gets the sense that Linkous is assembling bits and pieces in an attempt to scare his listeners, rather than to tell a story of any sort. For the same reason, it seems a tenuous stab in the dark to try to analyze his words beyond face-value. Still, there exists a motif of emergence and rejuvenation in “Dreamt…”

In 2001’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Linkous seemed trapped in a dark sea—or the belly of a mountain—murmuring tortured words from beneath the waves. “Dreamt…” sounds, then, like the story of his release, an Apollo-like journey beyond the stars. Production is tighter and more fluid, and the overall compositional coherence offsets the bizarre, seemingly unrelated kernels of lyrical imagination Linkous offers in each song.

This may be due, in part, to his collaboration with Brian Burton (aka Dangermouse), who adds his fuzzy beeps and beats to two of the tracks, including the opener, “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away.” Hardly faithful to its namesake, the song is undeniably uplifting, although its motivating sentiment remains elusive.

Although some lyrics are slightly cheerier than those on past albums, most of the words on “Dreamt…,” when read separately, are as ghostly and strange as ever before. This constitutes one of Linkous’s most endearing traits—somehow, he submerges his terrifying poetry such that the finished product rests beneath a veneer of tonal sanity. The nightmarish qualities of the lyrics come as a surprise when read; set to music their hazy imagery often fades beneath threadbare melodies, engendering a soothing, tidal feeling.

As on 1999’s “Good Morning, Spider,” a few songs on “Dreamt…” shine brighter than the rest. “Some Sweet Day” and “Shade and Honey” are sunnier than their peers, yet no less loveably weird. The Dangermouse work—which is to lead to a proper collaboration, tentatively called Dangerhorse, sometime in December—points in some hopeful new directions, embedding Linkous’s chthonian rawness in a new world of digital ghosts.

Ultimately, this album’s cohesive vision might be a disappointment to those fans who crave the completely bizarre. In the sense that “Dreamt…” is exactly what many expected, some will undoubtedly feel that it has fallen short. After all, Linkous crafts imagery beyond the scope of most people’s imaginations—a talent that puts considerable pressure on him to produce sonic ingenuity just to keep pace.

Still, Linkous is just a poet clawing towards the best manifestation of his inner demons. As such, “Dreamt…” becomes a monumental achievement, as he sounds closer than ever to finding a comfortable voice through which to share his nightmares. Gone are the more challenging, Tom Waits-influenced bits of previous work, replaced now with a menagerie of mixing techniques that do more to connect the dots, sonically, than ever before; beneath the fuzz, the droning organ, and the nasal edge of his voice, are the same melodic variations that have rewarded patient, discerning listeners for eleven years. In what may come to be seen as a step from the darkness into the light, Linkous has, with a little help and a lot of time, once again served up the twisted pop he is (semi-) famous for.

—Reviewer Henry M. Cowles can be reached at hmcowles@fas.harvard.edu.