Racm Records
2004
Living Things
About This Album
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.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.