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I have read no end of quotes lately from Stephen Merritt about how his new Magnetic Fields album is an attempt to channel The Jesus & Mary Chain’s seminal 1985 outing Psychocandy. With its layers of fuzz, Distortion makes a valiant attempt, but ends up coming across as a rehash.

Times New Viking, on the other hand, is the real deal.

Where Merritt’s Distortion sounds like a rather tired artist turning to his record collection for a new sound, Rip It Off is an inspired blast of lo-fi mayhem. The production has the sound of an early Pavement record played through a transistor radio with the volume cranked all the way up, and then recorded onto a tape player. Underneath the piles of distortion and feedback, though, are some rather tight songs.

I will admit to having some concerns about where the band goes from here. While this album, as well as its predecessor Present the Paisley Reich, is quite good, its brand of low fidelity crunch is not going to hold up if repeated indefinitely.

For now, though, I’m putting Times New Viking up there with Parts & Labor as further evidence that The Rock is not dead. Hopefuly Rip It Off, coming as it does this early in the year, is a sign of more good stuff to come in 2008.