XTC - Nonsuch

Nonsuch (1992) **1/2

In which XTC's march to bland sissy-pop mediocrity continues unabated.  Like Pears & Dragonfruit, it's over an hour's worth of music, but unlike Kiwis & Strawberries, there is precious little sonic variety.  Instead, it's merely one tastefully arranged, acoustic guitar or piano based mid-tempo "rocker" or ballad after the other, reaching for the thematic consistency of a formerly quirky New Wave band aiming for bland alternative rock for aging menopausal 30something ex-hipsters.  The music is fundamentally uninteresting.  There aren't any overblown arrangements or production excesses or wild failed experiments and Andy & Colin even sing somewhat better than before (I said somewhat).  It's just a collection of songs.  17 songs, in fact, and all falling into roughly the same style, I find myself....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Where was I?  Oh, yes, this is certainly the dullest album XTC have ever recorded.  It's not as if some of it isn't alright, it's just that there's too much of it, and it's all DULL DULL DULL.  Did I mention that this album was dull?  Let's break it down track by track:

1) The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead - When the strongest cut on the album is entitled The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead, you're in trouble.  Oh, that wacky Andy and his totally NON-OBVIOUS metaphors!  IT'S NOT LIKE HE'S HITTING YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THE SECRET SUBTEXT OF THIS SONG!  Hint:  it's about JESUS!

2) My Bird Performs - Colin obviously would have had no way of knowing that in Chinese, "my bird," is slang for "my penis".  Nevertheless, this song has me in stitches because of that.  That's the only redeeming feature of this song.

3) Dear Madam Barnum - This song is boring adult contemporary crap and you know what, screw it, it's only track #3 and I realize that no way am I going to get through analyzing all 17 of these songs one by one.  That would be almost as tedious and boring for me and my dear readers as actually listening to all of these 17 songs would be.  "Smartest Monkeys," is yet another PAINFULLY NON-OBVIOUS slice of social criticism performed 1,000x better when Ray Davies wrote it under the title "Apeman".  "Crocodile," is another animal song and it's good.  "War Dance," sadly, is not a Killing Joke cover.  "Omnibus," sadly, is not a Move cover.  "Bungalow," has some appealingly creepy melodics to it, at the very least, but is sadly, not a W. Somerset Maugham cover.  "Books Are Burning" - who the hell does Andy Partridge think he is, Sting?  Ray Bradbury?  Burning books is wrong.  Is that the message he's trying to get across?  Hmmm, I don't know if I agree, Mr. Partridge.  I'm all for book burning if it's the wrong kind of books.  Like, for instance, all copies of the inside booklet containing the lyrics of this CD. 

P.S.  I forgot to mention "The Disappointed".  That's a lovely little tune.  There are actually five-ish or so decent songs on this release, in fact.  But whether it's worth the bother to dig them out from underneath the other dozen, that's a good question.  Are you an XTC fanatic?  Yes!  Are you merely a casual fan?  Fuck that shit!  We're drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon!

XTC - Oranges and Lemons

Oranges and Lemons (1989) ***

In which XTC give full way into the sissy pop band always lurking inside.  One glance at the cover should tell you what this is:  a Saturday morning children's cartoon version of '60s "psychedelic" pop.  This is Chips From a Chocolate Fireball performed with a straight face, and that's only half the problem:  the other halves are the glossy late '80s production and the 15-song hour-long length (making it a small footnote in history by being one of the first double-LPs that was issued as a single CD/cassette).  OK, that's 150%, which adds up to excessive, but so does this CD.  (Actually, I've had it on cassette for years, but only listened to it for the first time in a decade this past week.)  The problems are apparent from the first track, "Garden of Earthly Delights," which hearkens unpleasantly back to Big Express territory with its ludicrous rococo excess attempting its best to hide whatever tune there may be underneath massive layers of over-arrangement.  Eventually, a bright and simple tune does make itself very clear and bright, but even then, you're so blindsided by the horns and pounding drums that all you'll remember is the overblown arrangement.  Fortunately, the rest of the album isn't (for the most part) within that style; in fact, the next two tracks are the album's clear highlights.  Moulding chips in with his A-side for the B-level sidekick he is, "King for a Day," which is very pleasant, easy-listening pop-rock that superficially resembles Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," (not that's a bad thing, mind), which was the non-hit followup to the album's big hit song (and only U.S. Top 40 entry) "Mayor of Simpleton," a song about a retarded person trying to get into some girl's pants.  It's an extremely catchy slice of pop classica, but I have to take issue with the vile sentiments.  Andy is arguing that he deserves to get laid even though he's ugly (ever taken a good look at him?) and stupid.  I'm afraid that I'm going to have to introduce Mr. Partridge to the concept of Darwinian selection.  Contrary to the song's sentiments, stupidity is never a turn-on.  The protagonist of the song lacks brains, charm, and good looks - so why should any woman want to be with him when there are so many better choices available?  Does Andy have anything to offer?  Oh, he claims that his love is so strong that she should ignore the fact that he's a moron, but that's never been a convincing argument in the history of courtship.  If intensity of feeling were an argument for romance, stalkers would make the best lovers.  Let's face it, some people just don't deserve to breed.  I know this sounds harsh, but have you taken the bus lately?  Our society is being overrun by dumb, trashy, not even particularly good looking people breeding like rabbits.  These people do not need to be encouraged.  Thus, "Mayor of Simpleton," despite its catchiness, ranks as possibly the most morally irresponsible song ever written.

After track #3 the album grows very inconsistent, starting with track #4, the painfully obvious (and I do mean pain) "Here Comes President Kill Again," which does nothing as a song and is the first entry in this album's song cycle of overwrought, simplistic political posturing.  I know that sort of thing was trendy in the late '80s and early '90s, but c'mon, XTC are no Midnight Oil, or even R.E.M.  It's not so bad when essaying lovely trifles as "The Loving," but not when he's getting po-faced and serious on "Scarecrow People," - is that a metaphor?  Whoah, could that be a metaphor for something?  Speaking of idiotic metaphors, "Pink Thing," is universally regarded as the album's lowest low point, and I'm going to quite predictably agree.  It's about a dick.  And it's not even funny - that's the real crime.  Anyway, to save this from being a lengthy track by track review of a 15 song LP, let me conclude by noting that the closer, "Chalkhills and Children," is a semi-haunting recreation of Surf's Up-era Beach Boys and that most of the good material is concentrated on the first side (as conventionally expected).  There are some crappy lounge-jazzy things on Side Two and some Garbage Pail Kids (remember the '80s!) children's music in "Hold Me Daddy," that sounds like a senile David Byrne.  I would counter with the cliche that this is one good LP stretched out to a double LP length, except that there are 15 tracks and only about 5 actually constitute good music that I might want to hear again, so that only makes for 1/3.  A good EP, then.  If you bothered to read my review, you know exactly which tracks to download for the iPod era.

XTC - Skylarking

Skylarking (1986) ****

It's not quite the masterpiece proclaimed, but it's easily the 5th best XTC album (after the classic '79-'82 trio and the Dukes side project).  Washed away completely are any New Wave jittery affectations; partial credit may go to producer Todd Rundgren smoothing away the dissonant edges into easy-listening pop, but XTC had been attempting to go pastoral since Mummer.  The result is the most cohesive album XTC have ever made; intended as a song-cycle tracing the pattern of springtime birthjoys to the fading embers of death, magically Partridge and Moulding tie the concept all together with a collection of tunes that rarely falters - an achievement for such a previously jarringly inconsistent band.  Their previous albums often were rough rides in their restless shiftings of moods, genres, and up/down song quality, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing; here, by contrast, the songs all flow together evenly in quality (more or less; there are highlights and lowlights) but more importantly, style of sound.  Getting the freakbeat mid-'60s affectations out of their system with the Dukes of Stratosphear, the mood of Skylarking is post-psychedelic late '60s:  the Kinks' village green, the Beach Boys' Friends, Paul warbling about mother nature's son, Donovan sending a gift from a flower to Syd Barrett. 

Not that it's all for the better.  Stripped down to musical basics and simply delivering straightforward, unaffected pop songs reveals some of XTC's songwriting to be a bit....well, simple, and not in a good way:  tunes like, "That's Really Super, Supergirl" can sound shockingly basic in the songwriting department this late in the band's career - childish, even, if I dare use that word.  This is not, however, a huge problem on this album (but trust me, it will be on the next one).  A song like Moulding's "Grass," may rely on more on texture than actual tuneage, but in this particular case that's no big deal - mood-setting is what it's there for, and it's clearly the winner of his four contributions, hazily evoking a roll in the picnic on a hot late summer day.  "Big Day," celebrating the great wedding, is Moulding's other standout track, but shouldn't it come before rather than after Partridge's "Earn Enough For Us," which frets over the husband's ability to support the wife and kids?   Nevertheless, it is appropriate that Moulding's morbid "Dying," should be the second to last track on the album - would be a bum note to end matters on, wouldn't it?  The conclusion then goes to Partridge's "Sacrificial Bonfire," considerably more upbeat but not exactly what I'd call UPbeat.  And how come no one ever mentions "Another Satellite"?  I have no idea what it's about or how it fits into the theme - it could be a digression lyrically for all I can tell, as it certainly is a digression musically speaking:  sounds spacey like Bowie (egads, yet another rewrite of "Major Tom"!  Ah well, this one's a good'un).

But now I have to deal with the album's big hit and most controversial track, to fans and non-fans alike.  Fans hate it because it was originally a B-side that displaced "Mermaid Smile," on the American editions and thus disrupted the thematic flow of the LP.  I can see their point, but I can't see XTC fanatics' point in writing off the song as complete rubbish because of that.  It's a classic case of fan snobbery to run down their favorite band's biggest hit simply because it's their biggest hit.  "Dear God," and not some other tune off this album, was a hit for a good reason.  Do any other tunes here, beyond "Earn Enough For Us," (which should've been a hit in a just world) scream 'hit single'?  Nope.  They mostly sound like a collection of good album tracks.  "Dear God," possesses one of the most direct and accessible melodies of XTC's career, an inventive if repetitive acoustic-then-electric Simon & Garfunkel-ish arrangement, and bitter, angry lyrics that speak to the hearts and minds of a lot of people.  There are very, very few popular songs written from an agnostic or atheistic perspective, and as far as I'm aware this is the only God-questioning as opposed to God-worshipping tune to ever actually receive substantial radio airplay.  It is the one song that XTC, if they have any song legacy at all decades down the road, are certain to be remembered for, for that reason alone, strictly musical worth aside for a moment. 

The Dukes of Stratosphear - Chips From the Chocolate Fireball

Chips From The Chocolate Fireball (1987) ****1/2

This album is every '60s fanatic's strawberry alarm clock dream, a loving parody of Sgt. Pepper's era mod psychedelia that amazingly pulls it off not merely as a picture-perfect tribute but also the finest collection of tunes that Partridge & Moulding ever penned.  I know, I know, you hate those smarmy ain't we clever bastards with hiccupy vocals in XTC, but seriously - even if you hate the band, you need to check this record out.  I wouldn't go so far as to say need NEED, but any fan of '60s British Invasion and psychedelia has a hole in his collection that isn't complete until he's heard this compilation (1985's 6-track 25 O'Clock EP and 1987's full-length, 10-track LP Psionic Sunspot).  Actually, you know what?  It's actually better than any psychedelic album actually released during the flowerpot power era, excepting the Move and the Beatles themselves, but not excepting the lightweight and inconsistent Piper at the Gates of Dawn and certainly not the psychedelic efforts of B-listers the Hollies, the Small Faces, the Pretty Things, or the Rolling Stones' great folly.  Oops, forgot about a certain LP by the Zombies I recently gave five stars to.  And there's Love's magnum opus which rivals this platter, but let's forget about that, as the Dukes are content to more or less completely bypass West Coast psychedelia and concentrate exclusively upon the U.K. variant.  I said almost, as the closing track on the CD, "Pale and Precious," is a loving Beach Boys tribute - and not the surf-era BB's, but the post-Pet Sounds  Manson-era BB's.

Which is an anamolous track anyway, being a clearly clear direct tribute to a specific band's sound.  Most of the rest of the tracks swipe specific elements of specific songs from the Beatles, Kinks, Move, Stones, etc., as well as one-hit Nuggets blunders - "Bicycle to the Moon," clearly derives lyrical inspiration from Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle," and there's at least a couple of "She's a Rainbow," piano line cops, and the clock chiming intro to the CD obviously was swiped from the Floyd, and etc. etc. etc.  We could play this game all night.  But better to go straight to the horse's mouth and read Andy's info in the XTC biography where he lays out the specifics of which Dukes track stole from what '60s songs.  I'm sure you can look it up for freebies on one of the more comprehensive XTC fan sites.  The point is that Andy and Colin took a grab bag of elements of psychedelic cliches, from backwards instruments to vocal phasing to stereo panning to fake Indian sitars, lit the lava lamp and pushed the GO OVERBOARD! button.  For once Partridge & Co.'s devotion to studio gimmicrackery that throws in the production tricks kitchen sink not only works, but actually feels like it flows naturally and unforced.  The tracks don't so much specifically pinpoint any specific band as they lovingly recreate the devil-may-care-let's-try-it ethos and spirit of the era.  Spirit?  Nah, I don't really hear any steals from them.

What makes it work doubly is not just the excessive production job, which in and of itself would make this side project worth a few giggles and not much else.  No, XTC have given the Dukes some of their finest-ever tunes, directly catchy and more easily accessible than most of their "real" XTC work.  "The Vanishing Girl," isn't psychedelic at all - there aren't any production gimmicks in sight, it's simply a straightforward pop song, and the most instantly winning song on the CD for that.  The growling "25 O'Clock," the swishy-swooshing "Mole From the Ministry," the winsomely bouncing "Brainiac's Daughter," the barrelhouse rollicking, "You're a Good Man Albert Brown," - these are simply excellent XTC songs of the first order.  In sum, this is far, far more than merely a novelty record.  It's not only a brilliant conceptual coup but a great, very fun barrel of tunes.  Perverse as it is to think about, XTC's greatest triumph was a side project intended as a joke.

   

XTC - The Big Express

The Big Express (1984) ***

Whoa-hoah-hoah Nelly, talk about OVERPRODUCED, and I don't toss that term around lightly:  this may, ladies (I'm sure there is at least one member of the female species who reads this music geek's blog) and gentlemen, constitute - without overstatement - the most insanely overproduced outpouring of musical product ever released.  By overproduced I don't just mean glossy (which it is).  I don't just mean LOUD (WHICH IT DAMN WELL IS, THIS ALBUM IS THE MUSICAL EQUIVALENT OF TYPING AN ENTIRE PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS).  I don't just mean overranged (which the busy-busy-busy-busy-busy-clockwork working overtime tunes most certainly are).  I don't just mean headache-inducing (which it....oh, you get the picture).  WHALLOP!  WHALLOP!  WHALLOP!  THAT IS WHAT THIS ALBUM FEELS LIKE.  YOUR HEAD IS BEING INCESSANTLY POUNDED UPON BY DRUMS MIXED WAY, WAY, WAY UP IN THE MIX (NOTABLY THE WORST SONG OF ALL TIME [OK, ARGUABLE, BUT WORST XTC SONG OF ALL TIME?  INARGUABLE] "SHAKE YOU DONKEY UP" WHICH SOUNDS AS RETARDED AS YOU'D EXPECT FROM THE TITLE).  IN FACT, EVERY INSTRUMENT IS MIXED WAY, WAY UP HIGH, FROM THE OPENING POUNDING PIANO CHORDS OF "WAKE UP," WHICH COMPETE WITH COLIN MOULDING'S MULTI-TRACKED, BEERILY SHOUTED VOCALS.

Ok, enough of this nonsense, I'll shut the caps lock key off for the rest of this review, but perhaps that opening paragraph might give you a sense of how annoying listening to this album can feel like.  Studio hideboundness was obviously not doing Partridge and Moulding any favours, as this album and Mummer suffer from what feels like a pair of grown man-children run amok constructing train sets in Santa's elves' worshop.  The actual sound of Mummer, obtuse as the tunes were, was actually pleasanter than this over-the-top fruitcake; however, this album's considerably better, as the tunes are more direct and poppily accessible and just plain good.  However....however, however, however, getting past the production is a huge, huge, huge hurdle  Partridge's lunatic excess gets so excessive that he almost buries the hooks and melodies by parodoxically overemphasizing the hooks and melodies:  the aural equivalent of shoving a rich, creamy chocolate-with-sprinkles cake in your face like a clown.  Sure, cake is sinfully delicious, but not particularly enjoyable when it's rammed in your face.  Words cannot express my relief when track five rolls around, "This World Over," a (relatively) low-key adult contemporary ballad concerning the aftermath of nuclear armeggedon.  If that sounds like the sort of thing that a solo Sting might pull, well, you'd be right - it does sound like a leftover from Dream of the Blue Ghost in the Synchronicity Machine Which is Nothing Like the Sun.  Then comes more pounding whallop! in "The Everyday Story of Smalltown," which is Ray Davies in lyrical outlook and feel if not precise presentation (garish, garish, garish, and damn aren't those drums mixed way too high?), and along with "This World Over," you've got the two genuinely great, prime XTC tracks on this album paired right next to each other.  Then they have to ruin the winning streak by following that up with "Liarbird," a go-nothing song with worthless vocals.  There's something so nails-on-chalkboard about this tune that I can't quite put my finger on.  Sifting through the dross and drivel, there remain three pretty good songs:  "All You Pretty Girls," the musical excesses of which are salvaged by a brawnily puffing chorus;  the flutteringly surging piano pop, "You're the Wish I Never Had," which structurally reminds me of the Pretty Things' "Walking in My Dreams,"; and Moulding's Kinks-gone-lounge jazz "I Remember the Sun."  Of the three bonus tracks, only one is worth salvaging:  Moulding's "Washaway," cutely pounding pianner-poppy little thing; of the other two bonuses, "Red Brick Dream," is a pretty nothing, and "Blue Overall," bluesily grating chalk-on-cheese.  



XTC - Mummer

Mummer (1983) **1/2

Around this point in XTC's history, Andy Partridge suffered a nervous breakdown onstage and the band gave up touring entirely.  I suspect the retreat into the insular studio is to blame for this cluttered mess of an album, and clutter is the precise word:  the songs - I don't know even where to begin describing half of these tunes, they are so intricate and stuffed full of interesting ideas that in general go nowhere.  Overcleverness had threatened to topple over the band's innate tunefulness on previous encounters, and here XTC's eccentricities completely overtake them:  the songs do not behave as proper pop songs, but announce themselves as meticulously constructed lego-block sculptures that scream, "Look at how much time, effort, and thought we put into building these Towers of Babylon!"  And as such, it's bloody difficult to find the melodic core of most of these tunes, getting so lost in the distractions of the rococo shuffle.  And unlike English Settlement, which likewise proved initially difficult to absorb, repeated listens don't uncover that many frosty nougats hidden within.  It doesn't help that the mood intended is pastoral, which translates as mellow and energy-drained; only the hectoring closer, "Funk Pop a Roll," which feels totally out of place, displays any rock'n'roll, and it's the worst track on the platter.  Sure, there are a handful of decent songs, but only the sprightly acoustic-based jig, "Love on a Farmboy's Wages," and the big-beat cello-pop "Great Fire," are up to XTC's usual standards.  Two more songs are decently passable:  the shufflingly loungey "Ladybird," is a pleasant trifle, and the WWI eulogy, "In Loving Memory of a Name," barrelhouses rollickingly enough to provide a sliver of amusement.  And that's pretty much all that's salvageable:  tracks like "Human Alchemy," and "Deliver Us From the Elements," seem fussily overcomplicated in their arrangements as if to overcompensate for their complete lack of melodic hooks, and are as aren't-we-clever-lads headache inducing as anything in the XTC catalogue.  And for a band whose entire career has been marred by ain't-we-clever smarminess, that's saying a mouthful.  Lower in my estimation is actually one of the rare simple tunes, Moulding's "Wonderland," that is so cheesily '80s produced that it sounds like the bleeding Style Council.  Fans and critics agree that this is one of the band's lowpoints, and who am I to disagree?  Back when I was fifteen, I took a chance on the band and plunked down two dollars for a cassette copy as my intro to XTC.  It burned me on the band badly and took me years to recover.

Oh yes, there are six bonus tracks, none of which are essential, and in fact, only two of which are really worth your time.  "Frost Circus," lives up to the title, Christmas-y carnival instrumental froth.  "Jump," isn't nearly as winsome as Van Halen's but it's another sprightly little acoustic pop number that warms the cockles.  "Toys," is of a piece with the album proper, far too clever for its own fussily overrangement archness.  "Gold," is brassily annoying, and "Procession Towards Learning Land," wasn't memorable enough for me to remember it, and "Desert Island," is actually sort of OK, more pleasant acoustic pop.  OK, that's three bonus tracks worth the time of hearing, but none amount to much more than that.

XTC - English Settlement

English Settlement (1982) ****

A fifteen-track double LP crammed onto one CD, it doesn't have more songs than any of the other heavily bonus-tracked CDs (there wasn't any room for additional b-sides to add to the original album this time), but it feels a lot longer.  The reason is that the song lengths are up to an average of four to five minutes, and quite a few of them feel stretched out unnecessarily; these quirky little pop songs really don't need to go on as long as they do.  Another reason is that the songs, on the whole, aren't as immediately accessible as on previous efforts.  It gets off on the wrong foot by starting with Moulding's gloomy "Runaways," which eventually grows on you once you discern its carefully concealed melody, but any XTC album that begins with a hook so buried it takes repeated listens is, as you can guess, going to be the definition of a grower.  It's easier on the ears than the garishly pounding early albums, but on initial impression, also more boring.  But hang in there, the hooks eventually assert themselves, and some are even obvious: "Senses Working Overtime," possesses one of those 1-2-3-4-5! choruses that once heard is never forgotten.  "No Thugs in Our House," also possesses such a memorable, booming chorus, though in other respects it's an inferior song to "Senses Working Overtime".  The lyrics are on the whole somewhat more abstract and metaphorical than the mostly straightforward politicisms of Black Sea, though the message of "Melt the Guns" hardly leaves anything to the imagination, nor does the anti-work slacker's anthem "Leisure".  Musically there's more branching out into previously unexplored eclectic shores:  a bit of Spanish guitar tapdancing, some barrelhouse piano, even a straight-up synth-pop number, "Fly on the Wall," which is one of the few immediately catchy tunes.  The band's New Wave roots are fastly sailing adieu, never to return, but it's not quite mainstream guitar pop yet; XTC are still much too quirky for that.  The rough edges are slowly but inevitably being sanded away, however.   The album closes with a bitterly heartfelt plea of sexual frustration, "Snowman," a bit of a recurring theme in Partridge's lyrics.   Well, if I looked like an Andy Partridge in a pear tree, I'd sing those blues, too. And it's true as he surmises in "Down in the Cockpit" (a double entendre, naughty schoolboy?) that women rule the world by pretending to be the weaker sex.

XTC - Black Sea

Black Sea (1980) ****1/2

In hindsight, the evolution of XTC is as predictable as clockwork: this album takes one more further step away from cold New Wave and one closer step to the warmer climes of mainstream pop.  These are only half-steps, mind you; there are still plenty of White Music elements in the mix, but the herky-jerkiness is now forever confined to a respectable mid-tempo, the melodies are clearer, the song lengths are elongated, and there's even piano (not a synth!) on the opening track.  It's not as if the high points are all that much higher than the high points on their other albums; no, this is their best album for the simple mathematical reason that cut for cut, it's their most consistent.  Oh sure, "Love At First Sight" is as shallow as its title, "Living Through Another Cuba" annoyance factor is only partially redeemed by its (cute, guys) Cuban rhythm, and "Travels in Nihilon" closes the album with nearly 7 minutes of tribal pounding in a vain attempt to conjure up a gothic atmosphere but ends up merely an extremely repetitive noise (oh well, every band is allowed their "Sister Ray" failed experimentation).  Once again, Colin Moulding pens the A-side, the not exactly metaphoric "Generals and Majors", but Andy Partridge regains the reins and pens all but a couple of the rest, "Sgt. Rock" being the other obvious choice for a single.  Once again, the record company screw with the track order by inserting three bonus tracks (all B-sides) smack in the middle of the original album.  But never matter, as "Smokeless Zone" doesn't sound like it deserved to be buried on a b-side; "Don't Lose Your Temper," is a throwaway but only a 2 1/2 minute one, and "The Somnambulist", which lives up to its title (not entirely unpleasantly), at least provides a breather between pounding rockers.  Ah, they mixed those fat drums way up in the mix, didn't they?  And I haven't mentioned the lyrics yet: subjects include the Cold War, middle-class hypocrisy, militarism, the difficulty of language to communicate thought and feeling, the history of London's architecture, the slavery of modern man to units of monetary value, the way girls make you feel like a rocket that glows, and the difficulty of teenage boys raised on war hero comic books in dealing with those girls.  

XTC - Drums and Wires

Drums and Wires (1979) ****

The wires are guitars.  Jettisoning keyboardist Barry Andrews for multi-instrumentalist Dave Gregory, the helium cheese is considerably deflated and the real XTC, as we either love or loathe them, arrives.  Partridge and Gregory tangle their wires together to spin dissonant and scraggly but hooky webs, Moulding offers dazzling bass counterhooks (he may be the most accomplished musician in the band), while the drums roll on.  It's an anomaly in the XTC canon in that sidekick Moulding pens nearly half the tunes, and not only that, the A-side worthy material - the mechanized pound of "Making Plans for Nigel" (dullwitted boys graduate to dull factory floors) and "Ten Feet Tall", which may or may not be a penis joke but certainly points the way to the band's future in peddling straightforwardly melodic Beatlesque guitar-pop, being based not on jerky rhythmic patterns but on a warm acoustic guitar melody.  Perhaps Partridge was falling upon a temporarily fallow period; only "Helicopter," which is so tangled up in trip wires it constantly threatens to spring apart at any moment, and "When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty," are up to his best standards.  Not that it matters, as their singing and writing styles are barely distinguishable from each other.  It's a transitional album: maturity is signified by dropping the silly hyperactivity for a variety of mostly mid-tempos, but it's still mechanically bouncy new wave.  As with every XTC album, there are a few duffers, but I won't bother going into a track by track review; instead I'll state my main beef with XTC, which is nowhere as obvious as on this particular disc:  their music simply does not flow naturally.  XTC's music sounds fussy and labored, as if Partridge and Moulding are sweating over every carefully sculpted hook and forced melody line.  They obviously take a lot of work and care into constructing their songs, and the problem is that you can tell.  Their songs run like clockwork, but it's a transparent clock where you can see the inner workings, all the gears and strings and levers pumping and tugging.  That fastidious cleverness-on-their-sleeves, along with their (even fans will admit) awful hiccuppy vocals, prevent XTC from truly soaring to the heights of Beatles quality tunesmanship, despite their obvious brains, talent, and taste.

The CD adds three bonus tracks, culled from the "Life Begins at the Hop" single and its two b-sides.  All three could have easily been A-sides and are considerably more uptempo than the rest of the album's material.    

XTC - Go 2

Go 2 (1978) ***1/2

This hastily released followup sounds exactly like the debut, so it receives the same grade.  And thus ends my review.

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OK, there are some differences.  The band naturally sound a tad more professional and assured the second time round, and have ratcheted down the hyperactivity a notch (thank god).  On first superficial listen, it's immediately more appealing on the ears than the debut for that reason, but being a rush job, some of the songs sound underwritten and, well, rushed.  You can tell that they were short on material because they allowed keyboardist Barry Andrews to sneak a couple of his tunes onto the record:  "My Weapon" may be a parody of sexism but that makes it no less sexistly stupid; and "Super Tuff" - what's this nerdy white boy trying to do, make a contribution to The Harder They Come soundtrack?  Never mind, Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding are still up to form,  "Meccanik Dancing" an ode to / satire of the drinking & dancing classes, and "Battery Brides" (marriage = the factory assembly line) are especially fine, and not uncoincidentally the opening two tracks.  From there we get the good (Moulding's nerd-anthem "Crowded Room" and even better "Buzzcity Talking") to the bad ("Beatown" which seems endless at a mere 4 minutes) to the ugly ("Red"'s squeaky sax honking).  The best is tacked onto last, the bonus track single, "Are You Receiving Me?" a relatively uncomplicated power-pop boy-gets-screwed-over-by-girl anthem, and easily the finest three minutes found on the band's first two albums.  As with the debut, one herky-jerky bouncy rocker after the other grows tiresome over the course over an entire album, but in small doses, most of the individual songs are a shot in the arm.  Prime XTC, however, was still just around the corner.

XTC - White Music

 White Music (1978) ***1/2

Ever OD'd on helium?  Well, I wouldn't recommend more than a couple of huffs of hippie crack to anyone (you can actually feel your brain cells being slaughtered as you inhale), and I doubt these guys were puffing laughing gas, either, but damn, they had to be on something.  Nitrous sulfate, perhaps?  Benzedrine?  Caffeine pills?  Mexican jumping beans?  This album is "hyperactive".  I put that in quotes because while many albums are, indeed, hyperactive, this sucker is the poster boy for Ritalin.  Not for nothing do they have a song called "Spinning Top" which is as dizzy and frenetic as its title (and, frankly, just as much fun for those over the age 6).  Luckily, there's plenty of solid tunesmanship beneath the herky-jerky arrangements and tempos splashed with Jolt cola.  Hooks catchy galore!  "This is POP!" as they so proudly declare (they are not, however, as they also declare, a "Dance Band", unless you're at a charity gala for spastics.)  XTC were one of the first bands to truly earn the New Wave moniker - this definitely wasn't punk, much too aggression-free and relying on bouncy rhythms and cheesy keyboards for that; but it wasn't trad pub rock, either, it was much much too energetic and just plain weird.  At times (what do you mean, "at times"?  Practically all the freakin' time) XTC try too hard to put their tunes across as quirkily as possible.  Or maybe it's the other way round - they're naturally oddballs who are trying their darnedest to write and perform conventional Beatlesque power-pop.  Whatever the case may be, I find that after I rustled the ping-pongs out of my head, I catch myself humming the choruses of "Statue of Liberty" and "Into the Atom Age" at odd moments during the day, they're just that CATCHY.   Not that all of the album is up to that caliber; several songs come across as not much more than dinky little novelty tunes, and though the gross deconstructionism of Dylan's "All Along the Watch Tower" is the only truly awful song (albeit a six-minute long mistake, three times the average song length of the rest), I won't lie to you and say that by the end of all this herking and jerking and Pac-Man Ponging in my head, I'm not more than a little exhausted and annoyed.   It doesn't help that the length is padded out with six bonus tracks, apparently from a pre-album EP release, that are stuck RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the original album.  Not that you can really tell which are the bonus tracks and which are the original album tracks; the non-LP tracks are slightly more conventional and slightly less catchy, but not enough so's you could tell a blindfold difference. 

P.S.  "I'm Bugged" is a total ripoff of Wire's "I Am the Fly", but not quite as naggingly annoying (which in this case, makes it weaker than the Wire tune).