It’s 2018 and Fischerspooner have returned after a nine-year absence as an in-studio supergroup. Sure, why not? The group began as the performance-art project of frontman Casey Spooner and co-writer/producer Warren Fischer before finding surprising success as electroclash’s signature act. That genre’s celebration of artifice, coupled with the suspicion that it was all an art-school lark, created a mountain of critical skepticism that Fischerspooner have had a hard time surmounting ever since. Yet of their three previous albums, two displayed tremendous proficiency in the booth: #1, from 2002, remains a sexy, sleazy snapshot of its time and place, while 2005’s Odyssey convincingly refashioned their sound into muscular electro-rock. They really only blew it with the rickety dance pop of 2009’s Entertainment, and as another great prefab star once sang, two out of three ain’t bad.
For their comeback, Spooner and Fischer have joined forces with (among others) Chairlift vocalist Caroline Polachek, Beyoncé and Run the Jewels collaborator Boots, Saddle Creek Records’ in-house sound wizard Andy LeMaster, pop superstardom’s go-to engineer and mixer Stuart White, and freaking Michael Stipe. Speaking of comebacks, Stipe’s writing and production on the record constitute his first major musical outing since the dissolution of R.E.M. following 2011’s Collapse Into Now. As if in homage to the formation of this alt/indie/R&B Justice League, Spooner sculpted himself into a superhero’s physique, though with his long hair and soup-strainer mustache he looks less Marvel Studios and more like a human mash-up of the Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott characters from Road House. But the transformation has more to do with Spooner’s mid-life embrace of his own sexuality, which he addresses throughout the record with more candor and unapologetic lust than ever before. In fact, Stipe turns out to have been Spooner’s first boyfriend, way back in 1988, providing Sir with a juicy backstory to match all its attention-getting musical collaborations and stylistic shifts.
On the album’s singles and opening track, the results are pretty spectacular. “Have Fun Tonight” is its biggest electroclash throwback. It’s a stomping, threatening salute to nightlife's illicit lure that makes effective use of Spooner’s limited vocal palette by juxtaposing high-pitched come-ons with a repetition of the title phrase that sounds like an order issued at gunpoint. “Togetherness” is a slow-jam showcase for Polachek, whose co-lead vocals alternately soar, screech, and sigh with all the precision and control you’ve come to expect from her, while Spooner injects the sensual litany of his lyrics (“The back of your hand/My bottom lip/Down my throat”) with a palpable ache. The unexpectedly lush and lovely middle eight, meanwhile, makes Spooner’s description of his lover as a sharp-toothed predator “engineered for cruelty and charm” sound downright complimentary. The remaining singles—“TopBrazil,” a midtempo number with a sly melody that sounds like an Odyssey outtake, and “Butterscotch Goddam,” arguably the record’s horniest moment, which is saying something—provide their own pleasures, if not quite reaching their counterparts’ heights. Album opener “Stranger Strange” is an inviting slice of sexual psychedelia; its slow groove, crescendoing synths, and marvelously unhinged vocal yelps and yowls are the aural equivalent of parting the beaded curtain at the entrance to an orgy.
If you’re feeling generous and inclined to favor diaristic directness over sonic strength, you can add album closer “Oh Rio” to the list of highlights. Spooner juxtaposes his teenaged sexual awakening, flipping through Bruce Weber photos in the back of a bookstore, with a growing awareness of his own mortality, reducing a beachside tryst with a younger man to a series of wearying symptoms: “Hacking up a lung, flayed out in the sun/Sometimes dreams have to die.” Musically, there’s not much going on, but those words would be powerful coming out of anyone’s mouth, much less the guy who used to flagrantly lip-sync to “Emerge” twice per show, since it was their biggest hit. Add it all up and Sir would make a heck of an EP.
The remainder of the record, though, is just plain forgettable. The aptly titled “Everything Is Just Alright” sets the dreary tone near the top with a maddeningly repetitive chorus and the first signs that Spooner’s chronicles-of-an-aging-lothario lyrics will bear diminishing returns over time. (“I’m kind of buzzed, you’re kind of dumb,” I’m kind of bored.) Fully five different songs—“Discreet,” “Strut,” “Get It On,” “I Need Love,” and “Try Again”—trod the same tired ground of plodding beats, slovenly melodic structure, and phrases repeated like a nervous tic. Only “Dark Pink” distinguishes itself with a major-key melody and big ’80s horns, but it’s over before it can get anywhere interesting.
It’s hard to blame Spooner, Fischer, or Stipe for wanting to flood the zone after such prolonged absences from the scene. Yet Sir’s highs show that this peculiar team is perfectly capable of coming up with good ideas. The spirit was willing, but the editorial hand, which could have redeemed the project by jettisoning the filler, was weak. Sir starts sexy, finishes sad, and boasts a quartet of bangers in between. Unfortunately, that leaves you with more than half the album left to endure.
