1986
Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians
The Barracudas
The Surfin' Lungs
London
King's X The Bell
by Jonathan Romney
Seven years ago, The Soft Boys kindled bright hopes for a new wave of homegrown Psychedelia and proceeded to confound them by turning out a series of increasingly metallic albums of porridge-headed dementia. Inside, the elegantly unhinged worldview of frontman Robyn Hitchcock was struggling to express itself, and it may now have found the ideal vehicle.
The Egyptians feature the original Soft Boys rhythm section of Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe, with Roger Jackson on varied and eloquent keyboard effects (the two latter gents most recently heard in the Levi's swordfish ad, strange but true). If this is no longer the guitar band that fretboard-fixated America took to its heart, it is the band the SBs always promised to become; poised, adroit, oblique, always tense and always surprising.
Initially nervy and retiring, Hitchcock soon launched into his psychedelic raconteur persona, linking songs with elliptical little yarns that Frank Muir might not tell even if his after-dinner sherry had been spiked. The Egyptians' sound has redressed the balance so it now seems there might be some inherent logic to the sort of lyrical quirkiness critics love to dismiss as hidebound. The music was not played for laughs. Early favourites like "Where Are The Prawns?" were fished up from the depths, "Only The Stones Remain" was dazzlingly refurbished, and "Acid Bird" was quite simply spellbinding. And for once, no cover version, which suggests that Hitchcock is ready to walk on his own feet without the crutch of moral support his habitual homages to Reed, Barrett and McGuinn once provided. This man doesn't deserve to languish in cult obscurity, so investigate forthwith.
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