release date: Feb. 12, 1982
format: vinyl 2 lp (embossed cover - V2223) / cd (2001 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,06]
producer: Hugh Padgham & XTC
label: Virgin Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: A) 1. "Runaways" - 2. "Ball and Chain" (4 / 5) - 3. "Senses Working Overtime" (4,5 / 5) - 4. "Jason and the Argonauts" - - B) 1. "No Thugs in Our House" (4 / 5) - 7. "All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)" - - C) 1. "Melt the Guns" - 3. "It's Nearly Africa" - - D) 1. "Fly on the Wall" (4 / 5) - 2. "Down in the Cockpit" - 3. "English Roundabout" (4 / 5) - 4. "Snowman"
5th studio album by XTC produced by Hugh Padgham and the band is XTC's critically acclaimed conceptual double album.
Commercially, the band never succeeded like contemporaries like U2 and The Jam, but they were the critics' and other bands' darlings, and with this, Partridge / Moulding was a duo in the songwriters' super-league. At this point their music had changed from fast energetic new wave outbursts, and experimental art pop, to more lyrics-based tracks in an art pop, pop / rock style, and it had become more jangle pop. The album was soon seen as a cornerstone of new stylistic progression on the contemporary European pop / rock scene because undoubtedly, they played perfectly unnoticed by the broad American audience.
Personally, the music didn't sink in until some years after but it's one of Britain's musical jewels of the early 1980s. I find that it's one of those rare albums that keep adding new dimensions to "its shape". Actually, it doesn't even sound dated, and that's a huge accomplishment, and I think it has to do with the band's unique original sound. In a sense it's rather homogeneously crafted, but it's also extremely varied and ambitious - and in a way, opposite the tightness of Black Sea. To me, this is their absolute best and it's a highly recommendable listen.
[ allmusic.com, Q Magazine 4 / 5 stars, Pitchfork 100 / 100 ]
[ collectors' item - 1st issue with embossed cover ]
