Music: The Magnetic Fields’ ‘Love at the Bottom of the Sea’

MUSIC

The Magnetic Fields’ first effort for Merge Records since 1999, the 15-track “Love at the Bottom of the Sea” reclaims the willfully dinky synth-pop sound the New York indie-pop outfit renounced in recent years in favor of fuzzed-out guitar rock and strummy chamber folk. Fans of buzz-building mid-’90s albums such as “Get Lost” and “The Charm of the Highway Strip” will instantly recognize “God Wants Us to Wait,” the shimmering pro-abstinence ditty that opens the CD with a bracing spritz of big-city sarcasm. Frontman Stephin Merritt has so refined his wry lyrical approach that his words — not the music behind them — almost exclusively define his songs. The Orpheum, 842 S. Broadway Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Fri. $30-$35. laorpheum.com.