Lil' Beethoven : Sparks : Review : Rolling Stone

Ron (left) and Russell Mael, the brothers and brains of the eclectic, enduring Sparks, spare no buffoons or expense on Lil' Beethoven: nine songs of lethal grandeur built from Ron's swollen waves of strings and fistfuls of piano and Russell's one-man operatic chorales. Ron fires up his ivories and piles on the orchestra like the real Beethoven running amok in the Brill Building, and Russell's quivering tenor - a perfect cocktail of Noel Coward and Freddie Mercury -- is a deadly thing, lancing Eminem wanna-be's ("Suburban Homeboy"), modern phone etiquette ("Your Call's Important to Us. Please Hold") and the false frenzies of rap metal ("What Are All These Bands So Angry About?") with droll accuracy. There is, with one exception ("Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls"), virtually no rock guitar or bottom here. Trust me: It's not a problem.

DAVID FRICKE
(From RS 919, April 3, 2003)