Sparks

Sparks sound as if a very elegant argument has broken out in the middle of a pop song: Ron Mael's keyboards fuss, stab and grin, while Russell Mael sings like the ceiling has suddenly become too low. Their records are packed with hooks, but the hooks arrive sideways, dressed in impeccable manners and bad intentions.

At the centre are the Mael brothers, from Los Angeles, working first as Halfnelson before taking the Sparks name. The Todd Rundgren-produced debut already has the odd angles in place: lyrics that treat romance like a logic problem, arrangements that refuse to settle, and a singer who can make panic sound immaculate. Ron writes as if the punchline has been left on a high shelf; Russell delivers it without blinking.

Kimono My House is where the machine snaps into focus. "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" opens with gunshots, galloping drums and Russell's falsetto climbing past reason, while the band keeps everything tight enough to bruise. Propaganda follows with shorter fuses and sharper corners, turning domestic dread, jealousy and social embarrassment into bright, ruthless pop. Sparks can be theatrical, but they never beg for applause.

Then they walk straight into Giorgio Moroder's Munich electronics for No. 1 in Heaven. The guitars mostly disappear, the sequencers take over, and the songs become sleek, funny and oddly cold, as if cabaret had been rebuilt inside a nightclub computer. That record makes later synth-pop easier to understand: not because Sparks sounded like everyone after them, but because they proved artificiality could still twitch, flirt and sneer.

The later catalogue keeps changing costume without losing the Mael logic. Angst in My Pants turns new wave nerves into clipped, sarcastic pop; Lil' Beethoven repeats phrases until they become threats, jokes or both. Their 2015 collaboration with Franz Ferdinand made sense because both groups understood precision as a form of mischief. Sparks are best heard closely, where every raised eyebrow has a rhythm part.