‘Penny Sparkle’ has neither of these attributes, thus making it difficult to persist with. The complexity and beauty of the latter invited the listener to persist and to truly understand the relevance of the album. The former needed no explanation it was straightforward and didn’t need to be meaningful. With ‘23’ that was rarely the case with the same applying to ‘Misery Is A Butterfly’. The listener is required on all occasions to have patience and to sit down and involve with the record, instead of using it as a small part in daily routine. The dynamics of opener ‘Here Sometimes’ are an example of this: minimal, indirect, but capable of making itself a full-on pop song, a chart hit perhaps. ‘Penny Sparkle’ does its best to present a more modest picture than before it restricts itself in milking the poignant melodies for as much as they’re worth, instead exploring more subtle means in displaying them. It marked a significant sonic shift - it’s a trait of the band to never sit in the same place - transferring complex pop melodies from basements to stadiums adding no-limit reverb and atmospherics to perfectly written songs. It’s an album that follows ‘23’, released in 2007 and received as undoubtedly the most direct, hard-hitting album of the group’s career. She’d recorded something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and the experience is much the same for the listener. When asked to describe her eighth studio album, lead singer of Blonde Redhead Kazu Makino remarked: ‘I am not sure what ‘Penny Sparkle’ is but I hope I offered to them as much as they offered me’.
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