It’s sometimes hard to believe so much time passes between
\nreviews of certain artists here at “The Daily Vault”; I’m
\nconstantly reminded just how long it’s been with my daily
\nexcursions into the Pierce Archives (good morning, Mr. Jordan…
\nshall we dust Utah?).<\/p>\n
Another thing that hits me often (besides dinnerware thrown at
\nmy head by Mrs. Pierce) is how long it’s been since certain groups
\nhave released any new studio material. One such band is XTC; I
\ncan’t believe it’s been six years since
\nNonsuch<\/i> came out. (One wonders what the future of the band
\nis, with the recent departure of Dave Gregory from the fold.)<\/p>\n
Andy Partridge and crew have been in a serious quandry: they’ve
\nbeen putting out a lot of quality albums that not a lot of people
\nhave been buying. Most radio stations have all but ignored the band
\n– a damn shame, seeing how many songs they’ve had that would easily
\nfit into many different formats. And if any one of their works was
\nready for prime time,
\nNonsuch<\/i> was it.<\/p>\n
Opening up this fifteen-song epic, “The Ballad Of Peter
\nPumpkinhead” is a backhanded slam against organized religion that
\nhas a poppy, dance-all-night beat (courtesy of drummer Dave
\nMattacks – who, if I remember right, has been a member of Jethro
\nTull recently). Partridge’s vocals are in fine form on this track,
\nand is one of the best songs on the album. Other songs that
\nactually saw a little airplay (at least in Chicago, anyway) that
\nare just as strong are “The Disappointed” and “Dear Madam Barnum,”
\nwhich happens to be an addictively good song.<\/p>\n
Sharing the lead vocal duties, Colin Moulding turns in some
\nstrong performances as well. “The Smartest Monkeys,” a slap in the
\nface to the “civilized” society that won’t help the downtrodden,
\nbenefits from powerful jangly guitar work, as well as Moulding’s
\nsarcastic “praise” of mankind. XTC also had to have learned
\nsomething positive from their experience with producer Todd
\nRundgren back in their
\nSkylarking<\/i> days; the synthesizer work on “My Bird Performs”
\nis hauntingly beautiful.<\/p>\n
In fact, many of the songs on
\nNonsuch<\/i> are some of the strongest this band has ever
\nreleased. “Omnibus” catches your attention with its offbeat rhythm
\nand alluded to sexuality (“makes your Shakespeare hard”? “makes
\nyour Union jack”? Hmm, wonder what Partridge is talkin’ about…),
\nwhile “Then She Appeared” shows its power in its softness.<\/p>\n
The “masterpiece” of the album, “Rook,” is the first inkling
\nthat Partridge (who proclaimed no existence of an Almighty on the
\nsong “Dear God”) might have discovered some type of spirituality,
\nasking in the song if he does indeed have a soul that it be watched
\nover. (I once read an interview with Partridge where he said he
\nkept bursting into tears when he recorded the vocals.)<\/p>\n
There are some clunkers on
\nNonsuch<\/i>, which prove when XTC were off their game, it was
\npretty bad. “Bungalow” is a very weak song that could easily have
\nbeen cut, while “Humble Daisy” isn’t the best song to come into
\nafter a rocker like “Dear Madam Barnum”.<\/p>\n
\nNonsuch<\/i> is one album that, thanks to bargain-line releases,
\nis an album that’s worth the minor expense to experience. (Hell, I
\npaid full price in 1992, and I don’t regret it for a moment.) If
\nthis album doesn’t get you interested in the music of Partridge et
\nal., then you need to have your head and ears examined. If this
\nturns out to be the final XTC album ever, they chose a hell of a
\nstrong album to make their ezit with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5743],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39045","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-xtc","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39045"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39045"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}