Skylarking

Once mocking pop-art contenders and Virgin’s original intercontinental explorers, XTC now settle in Swindon and purvey a rural psychedelia that’s as English as tuppence, cucumber sandwiches and cream teas, with songs that attempt to isolate experiences and aspects of the English character, the Soho scene-makers have rushed to obliterate. And now on Skylarking they’ve employed American acid antiquarian, Todd Rundgren to find them the alchemist’s stone of ’60s studio wizardry.

The result is fetching, intricately arranged and humanely observed songs that also seem to lack the dynamism to get anyone outside their immediate loyal cult, hot and bothered, the sort of album whose independence of attitude may be best admired from a respectful distance.

Perhaps Skylarking is ill-timed, a record, like the lazy single ‘Grass’, best appreciated on balmy summer evenings in some refuge where the roar of urban traffic doesn’t intrude. Still, only a churl would deny the humanity of Andy Partridge’s and Colin Moulding’s concerns or remain unimpressed by the dedication XTC apply to their vision, while Rundgren’s production has helped their one abiding defect: the lugubrious tendency in their vocals.

Strategic retreats like XTC’s can be useful for a rethink but they can also drain a band of forcefulness. Methinks, it’s time these moles came out of their holes.