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$13.99 CD+Bonus MP3s
$13.99 CD+Bonus MP3s
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THE SOFT BOYS
A Can of Bees
(Yep Roc)
THE SOFT BOYS
Underwater Moonlight
(Yep Roc)
Yes!! After languishing out of print for far too many years, the Soft Boys' first two albums are back on the racks for a new generation of miscreants to embrace. Formed in Cambridge, England during the start of the punk era, the Soft Boys took punk's bile-soaked gob-in-the-face attitude, applied it to frontman Robyn Hitchcock's more cerebral, surrealistic songwriting, and combined it with a lean angularity that could only have been birthed in punk's wake.
Their debut, A Can of Bees, is tense, taut and jagged in all the right places, similar to early Magazine if someone had given Howard Devoto a bit of blotter behind the scenes. They blend the cubist blues fracture of the almighty Beefheart with a barbed wire duel-guitar attack reminiscent of Television, some odd vocal harmonies, and a pinch of irreverent Englishness that makes for one of the most unique debuts in punk history. Songs like "The Pigworker," "Leppo and the Jooves" and the classic "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out" still seethe with bile and wink with mischief, and these newly remastered versions sound fantastic. This version includes the original track list from the first vinyl pressing on CD, with an additional nine bonus cuts available by way of a download code. My only gripe here is that I wish the single version of "I Wanna Be an Anglepoise Lamp" would have been included.
It's the follow-up, Underwater Moonlight, though, that really takes the cake for me. Opening with the classic "I Wanna Destroy You," one of the catchiest, most tuneful punk rave-ups ever recorded, the album as a whole takes the template established on Can of Bees and perfects it, adding a heftier dose of Syd Barrett's lyrical and melodic hallucination to the jagged proceedings. (The band would even go on to release a cover of Barrett's "Vegetable Man" as a b-side to the excellent "Kingdom of Love" single, included in the bonus material.) The tempos slow down a tad, and the interplay between the guitars is given more emphasis, the similarities to Television coming through a bit stronger here. This was an album that, like the first Velvets album, was heard by few, but those who did hear it went on to extol its virtues via their own bands' recordings and interviews, to the point where there was a time when more people had probably heard OF the Soft Boys rather than had actually HEARD them proper. Quite simply, Underwater Moonlight is near flawless, a hint to the jaded masses that psychedelia could adapt and take on a new set of clothing but still retain its core mind-bending ideals. Its songs are innovative square pegs trying to squeeze through elliptical holes, and this reissue comes with downloadable bonus material that totals a whopping thirty extra tunes, featuring all of the material previously available on Matador's excellent but now-deleted 2CD/3LP reissue from a decade ago, including demos, single A- and B-sides, live tracks, as well as a handful of additional cuts never before heard. This is one of my all time faves, a record that most music fans should hear at least once before they die.
Both records are long overdue for reissue, and as I mentioned before, they're both overflowing with extra material. These remasters sound great, and all of the original artwork has been restored as well. Three cheers to Yep Rock for these -- they're absolutely essential listening. [IQ]
Order Can of Bees CD by Texting "omcdsoftcan" to 767825
Order Underwater Moonlight CD by Texting "omcdsoftunderwater" to 767825 |
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