Sparks announce a new MADDER! EP

“Not wanting the Mad!ness to end and buoyed by the phenomenal reaction to MAD!, we made a hasty but intense retreat to the studio to record a Sparks first: an EP” say the band. “MADDER!, a four-song companion piece to the album, is for everyone who isn’t yet MAD! enough. We hope these new songs will take you to an even MADDER! place.”

The worldwide release of MADDER! is October 3, although physical copies – CDs, black vinyl and picture discs – will be on sale to fans during Sparks’ North American tour in September. ‘Porcupine’ - the first single from the MADDER! EP, released on September 2, is a song of a guy’s fascination with a woman who possesses, shall we say, a prickly personality, all to a verse with a highly infectious organ riff that yields to heavy guitars in the choruses. “She’s a porcupine” Russell croons - a metaphor or something more troubling?

The other tracks on the EP are ‘Fantasize’, ‘Mess Up’ and ‘They’, and the new material is in the pioneering spirit of the MAD! album, which was greeted with rave reviews, including five-star ratings from Record Collector (“...further proof of genius”) and the Daily Telegraph (“The gold standard for left field pop”).

Sparks’ recent European tour, with the usual eclectic selection of the Mael brothers’ work, set against a stunning production, has also been an unqualified success, with Louder Than War describing the show as “a hundred minutes of energetic, thrilling pop songs spanning half a century” and Classic Rock Magazine writing “Wit, pathos and brutality....a hugely thrilling injection of joy and power”.

MAD! US TOUR DATES

• Fri. Sept. 5 - Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
• Sat. Sept 6 – Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Festival
• Mon. Sept. 8 - Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Theatre
• Tue. Sept. 9 - Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
• Thu. Sept. 11 - Boston, MA @ Berklee Performance Center
• Fri. Sept. 12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
• Sun. Sept. 14 - Columbus, OH @ The Athenaeum Theatre
• Mon. Sept. 15 - Cleveland, OH @ TempleLive at Cleveland Masonic
• Wed. Sept. 17 - Toronto, On @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
• Fri. Sept. 19 - Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest
• Sat. Sept. 20 - St. Paul, MN @ Fitzgerald Theater
• Tue. Sept. 23 - Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
• Wed. Sept. 24 - Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
• Fri. Sept. 26 - Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
• Sat. Sept. 27 - San Francisco, CA @ Golden Gate Theatre
• Mon. Sept. 29 - El Cajon, CA @ The Magnolia
• Tue. Sept. 30 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre