1995
Robyn Hitchcock
Black Snake Diamond Role: Sequel RSA CD 819 **
Groovy Decay/Groovy Decoy: Sequel RSA CD 820 ***
I Often Dream Of Trains: Sequel RSA CD 821 **
by Tom Doyle
The first step in a re-release series featuring nine albums of Hitchcock solo material (repackaged with demos and extra tracks) beginning, naturally enough, with Black Snake Diamond Role (1981), his first outing after The Soft Boys' split. Featuring his first solo single, "The Man Who Invented Himself", the album struggles through a flimsy production typical of the period to reveal the Barrett-like "Do Policement Sing?" and the quirky Pop nugget "Love". But the six minutes-plus Jackanory-on-bad-acid of "Happy The Golden Prince" rounds off the proceedings in unspectacular form. His second release, 1982's more-rounded Groovy Decay is for the first time presented back-to-back with its sister album, the remixed/remodelled Groovy Decoy (1985) and features the Beatlesque charm of "The Rain", the New Wave wonder of "When I Was A Kid" and the demented Quasi-Disco of "Grooving An An Inner Plane" and "Nightride To Trinidad" (two versions here, as with many of the tracks). 1984's I Often Dream Of Trains (largely Hitchcock unplugged, accompanied mainly by piano or acoustic guitar) is a difficult one for the uninitiated -- particularly the more challening melodies and rhymes of "Furry Green Atom Bowl"
(although the sweetly-nostalgic "Trams Of Old London" and the near-classic "Uncorrected Personality Traits" still respectively warm the cockles and raise a smirk).
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