Released in September 2004,
Living Things is
Matthew Sweet's first official new album since 1999's
In Reverse. Prior to it, he had released
Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu the prior year, intending it as a Japanese-only release, but it proved popular among both fans and critics, so it was released in the States in tandem with
Living Things, but the two records couldn't be more different. Where
Kimi Ga Suki is an updated spin on the straightforward, guitar-heavy
Girlfriend, the closest relative to
Living Things in
Sweet's catalog is the lush, layered
In Reverse, but where that record was brimming with premillennium tension, this is warm, relaxed, and sunny. So sunny, in fact, that it could reasonably be called
Sweet's version of a
Beach Boys album, a sentiment that's strengthened by the near-omnipresence of
Brian Wilson's occasional co-writer
Van Dyke Parks on the album. He plays keyboards, organs, and accordion on all but one track here, giving the album a sun-kissed psychedelic flair, occasionally reminiscent of
the Beach Boys' post-
Pet Sounds albums, but lacking the infuriating twee preciousness of recent excursions of such
Brian Wilson-influenced '90s indie groups as
the High Llamas.
Sweet doesn't change his songwriting style for
Living Things. He grafts this summertime psychedelia onto his typically satisfying power pop, occasionally opening the tunes up into trippy interludes, such as the coda to "Sunlight." Since
Sweet's songs still are instantly identifiable as
Matthew Sweet tunes and since the album gets stranger and better as it progresses,
Living Things is not quite as great a departure as it reads, nor is it as immediately likeable as
Kimi, but it is nevertheless one of his most consistent and accomplished albums, sounding better with each repeated play. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine