Album review: Randy Newman - Dark Matter

4/5

Randy Newman has carved a singular career as thinking person’s misanthrope. His Woody Allen-esque deportment and whistleable melodies have, across a half-century, been paired with lyrics that wash over the listener like an acid bath.

In between working on the next Toy Story soundtrack — he has built an unlikely second professional life as Pixar’s in-house troubadour — his latest album is as acerbic as fans will have hoped. The White House’s slow dance with Moscow is lampooned on Putin (“He can drive his giant tank across a Trans-Siberian plain / He can power a nuclear reactor with the left side of his brain”) while, on the ‘Great Debate’, Newman delves into the cultural tensions between science and creationism in the United States.