This was the last album XTC released on the Virgin label before their 7 year strike over the band's refusal to tour. XTC have become masters of studio recording, and Nonsuch is probably the most polished album I have ever listened to. The three core band members (Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory, who has since left) shine in their roles, and Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention provides some extremely solid drumming. Most people will have heard "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" from the soundtrack to "Dumb and Dumber", when it was covered by the Crash Test Dummies, but the original is smoother and less frantic. Much more enjoyable. The album rings with Partridges sorrow over his divorce (a theme which was resolved in Apple Venus Volume 1 (1999)), but I think that, if anything, it makes the songs even stronger. Partridge and Moulding both contribute songs to the album, with the former being slightly more refined, but the contrast between the two songwriters makes the album highly listenable as a whole. None of the songs really let the album down, so I find that I can happily listen to the whole thing without skipping tracks. Favourite moment? The climactic ending to "Books Are Burning", where Partridge and Gregory battle it out on guitar, alternating solos to fade...

I'm contributing this review as a complete stranger to XTC; it was the first CD of theirs I bought. I like bands like the Barenaked Ladies and the Divine Comedy, which have great lyrics as well as great music, and I'd been told that XTC was in much the same vein. So how does it measure up?

Welll, not bad at all. Some of the lyrics really are quite smart (Boy it's ugly underneath/Did you ever try to roll away the wheel/See the unnatractive things that make us real/...What you;ve trodden in's the truth/nd that's the hardest thing/To wash down with a glass of lemonade. - typical of their somewhat vinegar-soaked mood) The music is in my judgement less good - a bit old-fashioned, like some of the Beatle's/Simon and Garfunkel's weaker songs. Only a few songs here are genuinely catchy, like the Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead and My Bird Performs and Wrapped in Grey. The album make an uneven listen, but does grow on you.