Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Johnson

The Guardian 80

(Mexican Summer)

Indie provocateur Ariel Pink’s visibility has depended on a willingness to say anything for attention, controversy overshadowing uncertain talent. His songs, like his interviews, often teeter on the unlistenable edge of annoying, but push past the weaponised irony and you’ll find Another Weekend and Feels Like Heaven are his most seductive melodies since breakthrough album Before Today. Elsewhere, joyous pile-up pop mixes the He-Man theme, lo-fi new wave and 60s psych inside a fairground ride. Time to Live is the Buggles covering the Velvets’ Sister Ray – in six minutes it veers from bracingly silly to grindingly tiresome to exhilarating brilliance, just like Pink himself.