The 6ths, Wasps' Nests - 45m 26s

Tracks & Durations

1. San Diego Zoo (vocals Barbara Manning)	3:21
2. Aging Spinsters (vocals Stephin Merritt)	2:19
3. All Dressed Up In Dreams (vocals Mary Timony)	2:54
4. Falling Out Of Love (With You) (vocals Dean Wareham)	2:54
5. Winter In July (vocals Ayako Akashiba)	2:32
6. Pillow Fight (vocals Mitch Easter)	2:34
7. Dream Hat (vocals Mac McCaughan)	2:28
8. Movies In My Head (vocals Georgia Hubley)	4:18
9. In The City In The Rain (vocals Lou Barlow)	3:42
10. Her)	2:42
11. Heaven In A Black Leather Jacket (vocals Robert Scott)	2:46
12. Here In My Heart (vocals Anna Domino)	3:30
13. Puerto Rico Way (vocals Mark Robinson)	3:28
14. You Can't Break A Broken Heart (vocals Jeffrey Underhill)	3:16
15. When I'm Out Of Town (vocals Chris Knox)	2:33

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

The 6ths are not so much a band as a forum to showcase the synth pop writing and arranging talents that Stephin Merritt normally reserves for his sometimes solo, sometimes group, project, the Magnetic Fields. On Wasps' Nests, the songwriter's first major-label release, 16 indie rock stars, from Superchunk's Mac McCaughan to Unrest/Air Miami's Mark Robinson take turns singing new Merritt compositions.

But for all the reinterpreting you'd expect from staunch individualists like Sebadoh's Lou Barlow, Wasps' Nests is surprisingly unified. Perhaps because the music and production is all Merritt's, none of the voices do much to alter the essential qualities of the songs' form and style. Every vocal performance, from the airy soprano of Heavenly's Amelia Fletcher on "Looking For Love (In the Hall of Mirrors)" to Merritt's own brooding bass on "Aging Spinsters," is moving but inconsequential to the music's identity.

Just as well. Wasps' Nests is designed to highlight Merritt, the writer and arranger. As he clarified last year on the Magnetic Fields' brilliant The Charm of the Highway Strip, Merritt is the rare pop composer to ingest all the greats before him--from Bacharach and David to Morrissey and Marr--and to applie their infectious melodic gifts and lyrical grace to the sounds and tools of the day. Merritt's weapon of choice: the multilayered metallic drone and zap of the computerized keyboard. And he slays us every time. --Roni Sarig

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