XTC

In the four years since XTC began, the band's youthfully aggressive, revved-up white-noisy
style has settled like dust around an industrious sculptor, leaving a finished product that
combines streamlined originality with Beatles-type buoyancy. The typical XTC sound fuses
Andy Partridge's and Dave Gregory's spasmodically vertical guitar lines, Terry Chambers'
alert and unpredictable drumming and an overlay of pure-pop boy-group harmo... More >

Virtuosos shouldn't show off--it's bad manners and bad art. I'm suitably dazzled by the breathless pace of their sh*t--from folk croak to Beach Boys croon in the twinkling of a track, with dissonant whatnot embellishing herkyjerk whozis throughout--but I find their refusal to flow graceless two ways. On what do they predicate their smartypants rights? On words that rarely reclaim clichés about working-class futility, middle-class hypocrisy, militarist atrocity--not to mention love like rockets and girls who glow. They do, however, show real feeling for teen males on the make and, hmm, the recalcitrance of language. (Grade: B+)