tracks on LP: Respectable Street / Generals And Majors / Living Through Another Cuba / Love At First Sight / Rocket From A Bottle / No Language In Our Lungs / Towers Of London / Paper And Iron (Notes And Coins) / Burning With Optimism’s Flames / Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me) / Travels In Nihilon
Virgin Records V 2173
Producer: Steve Lillywhite
Recorded at the Townhouse Studios, London, Summer 1980.
Released: 14/09/80
Purchased: 27/06/81
The lack of commercial success for XTC has always perplexed these ears. They are easily one of the top bands in the country with their fractured and intuitive stance to the formulas of pop music.
Their development from a quirky pop band based on the keyboard work of Barry Andrews and the off-beat guitar figures of Andy Partridge to the subtle rhythm drive of today with the boundless invention of Partridge harnessed to the dexterity of Dave Gregory is quite astonishing.
Swindon’s finest
‘Black Sea’ sees them firmly on a higher plateau and is the perfect summation of everything the past three albums and assorted odds and ends have hinted at in terms of production, composition and execution.
Other commentators have already mentioned the similarity between this and the later work of The Beatles and the observation runs true for the craft and variety of techniques and devices utilised and the progressive flavour of late sixties pop, but ‘Black Sea’ is unmistakeably that of Swindon’s finest.
The opener, “Respectable Street” is a vicious attack on the petit bourgeois attitudes of suburbia that boasts the characteristic blend of energy and propulsion from Terry Chambers and Colin Moulding and the jagged rhythm of Partridge. Lyrically the song pieces together a jigsaw of images that smack their target forcefully while being carried by some sparkling melody hooks.
The scale of invention on the album is staggering with the emphasis firmly entrenched on dance rhythm exhilaratedly crocheted by the tension of the instruments rather than ham-fisted force. Every sound committed to vinyl sounds perfectly balanced but even the microscopic attention to detail hasn’t resulted in any stiffness.
XTC | Black Sea | Virgin | 1980
Just check the modern dance of “Living Through Another Cuba” where a typically kinetic fusion of XTC riffs generate a breathless wash of energy while pinpointing the helplessness of watching the superpowers play prestige ping-pong.
Both of the Colin Moulding compositions, “Love At First Sight” and the current single “Generals And Majors” show his gentle ear for melody and sharply contrast with the more physical mode of Andy Partridge‘s compositions.
The late Sixties feel of whimsy coupled with infectious melody, pop sensibility and the bubbling power and dynamic tension of the band’s playing pervades the whole set.
The maturity of XTC has finally overcome the old jibes about them being “too clever”. This, along with the Bunnymen and Gabriel sets are the first truly indispensable sets of the new decade. In fact, it’s advisable to buy two copies as mine is almost worn out already. File under refreshment for the ears, body and spirit. (Record Mirror, 13/09/80)
XTC | Black Sea | Virgin | 1980
XTC Black Sea (Virgin) XTC’S fourth outing, called, for no apparent reason, ‘Black Sea’, greets the reviewer like nothing so much as a bowl of Frosties on a wet morning.
Such a literary gum-drop is, though I say so myself, only too apt in the case of XTC, who often verge on absurdity themselves. This is both the hallmark and the bugbear of a group with a sense of humour and no sense of purpose.
Critical consensus has it that they’ve evolved beyond the matinee phase and are now deserving of mature consideration, but one detects a slight injustice in that approach to what remains a perfectly inconsequential and hugely diverting combo who have never once threatened to produce great art, although the truth is that sometimes Frosties are not enough.
Far more pressing than any discussion of XTC’s position in the musical galaxy, however, is the question of why they should unfailingly suggest to my impressionable mind several unwholesome juvenile foodstuffs!? Their music has the perky, cheerful appeal of a breakfast cereal, the fizz, zest and tang of lemon sherbet, and the cumulative effect of a dozen Milky Bars. The price of their eccentricity, I suppose.
Time has not dimmed this quality—which used to be denoted by the word quirky hanging over their heads like a question mark—and ‘Black Sea’ exhibits all the characteristic slap-dash playfulness as it skips from inspired folly to inspired folly, never seeming to pause long enough to actually craft a song except in the case of ‘Towers Of London’, Andy Partridge‘s look at the era of Victorian engineering and empire.
XTC | Black Sea | Virgin | 1980
‘Black Sea’ proceeds at XTC’s usual tumult; as though they were afraid to let go of some sort of brink-of-the-moment inspiration that sweeps them along. Remove the exhilaration from XTC and they’d deflate like a balloon.
Or perhaps not. Despite the fact that they could easily have been written in the back of a school exercise book, Andy Partridge’s songs—the bulk of this album and the mainspring of whatever it is you associate with XTC — cover typical territory (girls, society, more girls) from untypical angles. He doesn’t like to moan about things — which may be why XTC always seem so lively. He grins and (at best) bares them; serving up his subjects with lashings of off-hand wit. A sort of tart with custard.
All this is jolly endearing for a limited engagement and a good antidote to the gloom and despondency that manifests itself more and more in today’s cultural life. ‘Living Through Another Cuba’, for instance, presents a cheeky optimistic face to adversity. ‘Respectable Street’ chuckles at the suburban attitudes that have been rich pickings for Partridge. Much of the rest of ‘Black Sea’ either fails to hit the mark or leaves no mark at all.
The trouble with XTC is that just as sweets rot the teeth, so XTC wear away their welcome. Till the next time. (NME, 13/09/80)
If the staff at Virgin Records could have collective dream come true, it would be to make XTC bankable. They stood a chance when “Making Plans For Nigel” slipped the leash and snapped around the ankles of the charts before the label lumbered into promo action – alas, it was too late – but this time round they plan no similar mistakes.
There is such an undoubting and justified faith in the pure damn quality of the new album, ‘Black Sea’, that Virgin have lined up a self-loading barrage of four singles from the album, headed off by the recently launched “Generals And Majors”. There’ll be the biggest celebrations since the Plasmatics were banned from Hammersmith Odeon if they succeed, but singles’ triumph or not, the album has to be a close contender for power pack of the year, whether Virgin market it aggressively or not.
‘Black Sea’ provides the most compact, springy and daunting example to date of XTC’s ability to be a dynamic, challenging all-round rock band, putting out on the dancefloor as well as stroking the frontal lobes with dry words and jaunty constructions. “Burning With Optimism’s Flames” is as close to the fulfilment of their ambition as they can get.
The appeal of the album is loaded as much in the conception as the execution of ideas, with Andy Partridge‘s writing taking a spring-heeled leap from the infectious power and direct message of “Living Through Another Cuba” and the driving “Sgt Rock”, to his dauntingly imploring “No Language In Our Lungs”, a compelling undergrowth of hard sound to match a song that sets the problem of accurate individual communication – ideas into words – against the potential power but inevitable impotence of those words and ideas:
“I thought I had the whole world in my mouth
I thought I could say what I wanted to say.
For a second that thought became a sword in my hand
I could slay any problem that would stand in my way.
I felt like a crusader, lionhart, a holy land invader.
But nobody can say what they really mean to say and
The impotency of speech came up and hit me that day and
I would have made this instrument but they words got in the way.”
Partridge tackles a more obvious target with “Respectable Street”, a put-down of suburbia that freshens an attack on a traditional enemy of the artist with some facile, if self-conscious word-juggling, by Partridge and a crisp, inventive production by Steve Lillywhite. His steady hand makes the rumbling, primal power of “Travels In Nihilon” an awesome valediction to close the album.
Bassist Colin Moulding, already marked as a potential Top Ten machine after his excellent “Making Plans For Nigel”, weighs in with two cuts – the equally impressive “Generals And Majors”, and “Love At First Sight”, a winding vocal track given a neat shoulder charge by the solid chorus line.
As a coherent whole, the album picks up the challenge presented by ‘Drums And Wires’ and extends XTC’s ability to pick new thoughts and old images and present them in a way that provides a role for the abstract and oblique while allowing fresh views of standard rock fodder like various concepts of love – “Love At First Sight” and “Rocket From A Bottle.”
They have settled to their task with an almost flamboyant confidence, and that self-assurance makes a positive rock success of songs like “Towers Of London”, a neat combination of Partridge’s colourful, professional lyricism and his ability to focus on the mundane and find a foothold for minor illumination.
XTC’s musical strength expands with relentless ease, and ‘Black Sea’ is essential evidence of their combination of muscle and motive, with the ever-maturing Lillywhite watching over the twinning of Terry Chambers‘ swaggering enjoyment of his drum kit (“Cuba” and “Travels In Nihilon”) and Moulding’s mobile bass with the harsher edges of Partridge and Dave Gregory‘s guitars, jarring and jiving with a dark logic.
The days of XTC being summed up as “berky jerky” or Swindon’s answer to Talking Heads are well over. ‘Black Sea’ is awash with confidence and crawls with a brimming rock bravado that makes full satisfaction a complete certainty. (Melody Maker, 13/09/80)
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