XTC - Black Sea
#376
by Lori Alley
September 12 1980
XTC
Black Sea
Genre: Rock/Art Rock?
Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Lori’s Rating 4 out of 5
Highlights:
Respectable Street
Generals and Majors
Rocket From A Bottle
Paper and Iron
Living Through Another Cuba
Clunker: Language in Our Love
This is XTC's 4th album and was released while they were still touring. It was their second highest charting album and with only eleven songs is a quick listen. I'll just put it out there right now;
XTC is my favorite band of all time.
I mean, I LOVELOVELOVELOVE them. They are the sound of my high school years, college, and oddly enough my 40's.
They are the band we'd listen to in my basement after a day of ice fishing and Yukon Jack, while it was snowing hard outside and Linda Marie Parker and I would be playing records and hoping Dylan will make a run to the Mainway for another bottle of cheap Chard and a pack of smokes.
I don't really know what it is about them but they've resonated with me since I was 15 and first heard Drums and Wires. It was like finally hearing music that really really clicked. I am like that weird stalker fan that's pretty sure we're best friends, and really, how have they lived without ME their entire lives?! But as we know, there's no accounting for taste. So, take this into account with this review which I will serve up with a dash of fawning and a tablespoon of gush.
When I first heard this album it was just like all the others, I immediately loved it. But I could tell something different had happened to them, like a deeper, heavier, more daring sound. I remember thinking, this is XTC, but somehow with better layers. This is where the roots of English Settlement started. (Am I overdoing the pomposity of my own opinion? Maybe. ) I like the transitions between songs, in fact, the transitions, as the next song starts, are for me sometimes the highlights of their work. When Respectable Street ends and Generals and Majors starts, I can hardly contain myself. I hope this is an intentional choice by the band or the producer. (I find this phenomenon to be true for me on all of their albums, when Yacht Dance starts, I mean it, just shut up for two seconds.)
Back to this record - I love the lilty, lyrical sounds, the political lyrics, and that what sounds kooky is actually masterful musicianship. It has moments of sheer exuberance and it's INTERESTING. I guess I realize that I am just not bored by this band. They don't mind changing course (or key) mid-song. SURPRISE! There's something so exciting about that.
Black Sea is where XTC finds their more defined identity, ironically just as Andy P. is starting to fall apart. The dirgy and clunky Language in Our Love should not be included in any album, this is their one mistake here and has resulted in my 4 rating. But otherwise they'd only have 10 songs and that's not quite enough I guess. Rocket in a Bottle and Paper and Iron have the dark weirdness of Drums and Wires, you can REALLY hear that sound. But otherwise there's a lighter, catchier more upbeat sound to some of the other songs, almost with a sense of humor. The ska-esque Living Through Another Cuba is almost joyful despite the song topic. Same with Optimism's Flames - it's almost funny.
I don't know if XTC is a band that you either love or hate, but I'd defend them to the death, and I can't even really articulate why. In a world of 80's radio and pop songs they were like a drink in the desert for me, they showed me that there was a whole world of people doing good things with instruments, using their powers for good, and not evil. Whatever mishaps they had, mistakes they made (Rag and Bone Buffet), I forgive them! At least they bring some smarts to the table, and a kind of fearlessness, a type of genius, and originality in their risky choices.
That's how I see it anyway. Let the arguing begin!
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