Music Box | Stereolab

Mike Newmark Assistant Arts Editor

Stereolab
Fab Four Suture
[Too Pure]
2 out of 5 stars

If Stereolab has learned one thing in the course of their 15-year career, it’s that in their genre, there is a thin line between greatness and mediocrity. During the ’90s, the “groop” churned out record after record of sweet pop-perfection, and their eclectic mix of twinkling Farfisa, muted trumpets, motorik guitar and sing-song vocals was often extraordinarily beautiful. By 2000, however, their sound had deliquesced into an easy-listening mush; the music’s detached vintage cool had suddenly become boring, overly intellectual and predictable. Listening to 2000’s Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night was like seeing a vision of Stereolab’s corpse, and judging from subsequent albums, Stereolab probably saw it, too.

The singles-collection album Fab Four Suture sounds like a conscious move away from the (qu)easy-listening of Cobra and Phases Group, and thankfully so. While Cobra had a penchant for overwrought, interminably long tracks, the longest cut here runs only 5:27 minutes. With Jim O’Rourke out of the producer’s chair, the instruments don’t melt into soup, but stand firmly on their own. This is also an album of songs, not tracks, with simple and accessible structures.Fab Four Suture has all the elements of a resounding success. It’s not one, however, and the reasons are as plainly obvious as they are disconcerting, especially for fans who have vowed allegiance to the group ever since they first heard “Jennie Ondioline.”

Since many of Stereolab’s albums sound similar, a good litmus test for judging their quality is noting how memorable their songs are. Do you remember the songs by name? Can you hum them? If you can’t, do you at least think about them while driving or doing your homework? Does your brain ever crave them? Fab Four Suture fails this test on almost all counts. When the player shuts off, the music simply evaporates as if you hadn’t been listening to anything at all. This is because the music—while occasionally pleasant—is dishearteningly familiar to anyone who has heard Stereolab even once. Every beep and hum, every droning keyboard, every sugary-sweet lyrical musing has been hijacked from previous albums, thrown into what barely passes for song structures, and delivered with less spirit and pizzazz than anything they’ve yet committed to tape.

The songs that stick out generally do so in the wrong way. The inane romp of the abominably-titled “Kyberneticka Babicka, Part 1” sports an unfunny ’60s fetish, alternating an incessantly bright drone with brassy honking as though the entire band got bit by the silly bug.

The core of “Vodiak” is a series of head-scratching synthesizer burps which give it the feeling of a Fantastic Plastic Machine outtake that Tomoyuki Tanaka would be all too happy leaving on the cutting room floor. The album has one positive standout: “Get a Shot of the Refrigerator,” which sounds like a breezy Sea and Cake tune sped up to 45 rpm. Grounded in acoustic guitar and sunny electronic touches, and complemented by Laetitia Sadier’s understated vocals, “Get a Shot of the Refrigerator” is where Stereolab sound freshest and the least like themselves.

When the “groop” isn’t trying too hard to be fun, they’re sinking into the Farfisa-ridden depths that define post-millennial ’Lab. Despite Stereolab’s clear attempts to free themselves from a holding pattern, Fab Four Suture lacks uniqueness, purpose, and a clear target audience, making it a great waste of time like no Stereolab album before. But it’s more than that; it’s also a warning light, forcing listeners to re-evaluate what made the band so magical and awe-inspiring to begin with. At the very least, it’s a telltale sign that Stereolab’s creative pen has run almost completely dry, prompting the dreaded but inevitable question: is this the end?