The Magnetic Fields have been around since forming in Boston in the early '90s, but it wasn't until 1999's three-CD 69 Love Songs that Stephin Merritt and his band guaranteed their legacy in the indie pop world. Merritt is one of America's best living songwriters, injecting wit and sincerity into every track. His dramatic, cavernously deep voice adds a surrealism to the realism of his love songs, like "I Don't Believe You," and "The Book of Love," whose lyrics poignantly capture the darkness, irony, and ordinariness of love. The band comes to Noise Pop a month after the release of the third and final album in its "no-synth trilogy." Realism, an all acoustic celebration of '60s and '70s psychedelic and orchestral folk (think Judy Collins) where the band incorporates Indian percussion instruments, tree leaves, and everything else you could imagine playing, except a drum kit. Despite the labels "psychedelic" and "folk", Merritt keeps each of the 13 songs on the album around three minutes. Along with Fields regulars Sam Davol, Shirley Simms, Claudia Gonson, and John Woo, the album features a few special guests, including San Francisco's Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) on accordion, Chris Ewan of Merritt's side project Future Bible Heroes, and Ida Pearle on violin. Coming as the complement to Distortion, the band's critically acclaimed 2008 noisy homage to Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy, realism is an exploration of what "real" means in terms of music, from folk style to production value. The albums are so perfectly opposite that he purportedly thought of calling one True and one False but couldn't decide which word best fit each album. Whether the band will return to synths after this album remains to be seen, but with Merritt behind the wheel, the band's next move is worth anticipating.
