Sparklehorse - Painbirds

Along with the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse crafts strangely beautiful -- and beautifully strange -- music inspired by down-to-earth sounds as well as spacey experimentalism. But where the Lips are lovably loopy and Mercury Rev is arty and wry, Sparklehorse wraps deep-seated, often uncomfortable emotions in layers of metaphors and static.

Good Morning Spider dwells in the gray areas between dreaming and waking, sickness and health, and living and dying. The album takes these grey areas and makes a world out of them, blending classic songwriting with an experimental sound that borrows from hi-fi and lo-fi. It's a natural progression from their debut, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, which introduced Sparklehorse's refreshing mix of classic songwriting and sonic experimentation. Good Morning Spider adds bubbling synths, ambient electronics, horns and drum loops to the mix, giving songs like "Painbirds" an unclassifiable -- but distinctively Sparklehorse -- blend of darkness and childlike innocence. From driving, punky songs like "Pig" and "Cruel Sun," to frail, winding ballads such as "Saint Mary" and "Come On In," to the experimental pop of "Ghost of His Smile" and "Sunshine," the album encompasses a rainbow of sounds and emotions but never loses focus.

Joe Tangari describes Linkous's songs as "defiantly surrealist...with all manner of references to smiling babies, organ music, birds, and celestial bodies. In fact, some of the lyrics are so surreal that it's hard to imagine they're even metaphors for anything." Many of these references are literary or from a variety of rock music sources.

Linkous committed suicide in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 6, 2010, thus ending the band's 15-year-long run. -From Allmusic and Wikipedia