7 keepers
keeper avg .467
Unlike the new wave-y Drums and Wires, XTC's fifth album "English Settlement" was meant to evoke a "more pastoral, more acoustic direction," which would also be less conducive to touring and the rigors that come from it. Except for the chalk hill album cover art, I don't get the pastoral description nearly as much as a connection to another little UK band that wanted to get off the road a few albums in. Between Partridge's stabbing "Getting Better" verse riff and the goofy synth bridge, "Ball and Chain"****, and the similar "Knuckle Down," are pure Sgt. Pepper Beatles, while the gently bobbing "All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)"**** is a lush Lennon-esque ballad. "Senses Working Overtime"*****, XTC's most successful single to date, emerges from disjointed verses with an anticipatory pre-chorus that sets up the tense dynamic of Partridge's insanely catchy "one two three four five..... senses working overtime" chorus. The album's other clear stand-out track, the deconstructed 50's rockabilly "No Thugs in Our House"*****, is so irresistible I totally misinterpreted its troubling premise, rendered in XTC's usual cheeky delivery.
But the album starts on a more subtle, beguiling note with "Runaways"****; set up by Terry Chambers' evocative bobbing rhythm and drone-y guitar, the subtle textures of this song and the hypnotically percolating album-closing "Snowman"**** seem to predict a seminal band of the next decade, Radiohead. While as usual most of the tracks are by Partridge, bassist Collin Moulding also provides some of the best tracks, including "English Roundabout" (with ska/bluebeat rhythm was contributed by Chambers), the vigorous, industrial-Motown "Fly on the Wall"**** (Partridge's scratchy, oblique chords would be the template for everything Johnny Marr did a couple years later), and the aforementioned "Runaways" and "Ball and Chain."
While not pastoral, necessarily these tracks do have a more nuanced sound or approach than previous albums; the album's only examples of new wave are the punk reggae "Down in the Cockpit" and the lyrically astute but melodically indeterminate "Jason and the Argonauts"; both resemble The Police and are also a couple of the album's weaker tracks.
Speaking of weak, while I think another reviewer's comment dismissing "side three of the vinyl as "an absolute throwaway"" is a little harsh, an album without the tuneless "Melt the Guns" and "Leisure", the Talking Heads "I Zimbra" (1979) clone "It's Nearly Africa," and "Knuckle Down" would have been a nearly resounding success, and only 53 minutes instead of the almost CD maximum 72 minutes.
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