Disco de XTC: “Drums and Wires [Japan]”

For those who have listened to XTC's later work (Skylarking, Nonsuch, Apple Venus) this work must seem to come from another band, indeed another planet. The band has spent the last 17 years, it seems, perfecting its Beatles imitation. Now it's time to see where they started. While XTC's first two albums (White Music and Go2) seemed hell-bent on destroying every pop convention and stretching the listener's ear to the breaking point, Drums and Wires is the band's first real attempt to construct a new sound out of the ruins of pop cliché they laid around them. Manic, frenzied beats and sharp, jangling chords give the album not only its name but its feel. Drummer Terry Chambers makes his presence felt from the opening riff of Nigel. His complicated rythyms intertwine with the instruments with precision. This album proves the loss suffered when he wandered off 4 years later to be replaced by session drummers. None of the songs after his departure had the same kick in the teeth. In many ways this album represents the best and worst of XTC. Andy Partidge's odd voice is deliberately strangely ennunciated. The lyrics disturbing, but show unique wit. "Now she's away from Convent, she's grown wild. She's growm from a nice young lady to a child." "When you wake up sticky in the morning, you'll find out an important piece is gone." But for anyone who has a fondness for '80s music, this '79 album is an absolute must. Anyone who has Adam Ant, Oingo Boingo, early Police, English Beat or Devo and not this album in their collection also has a big, gaping hole.

It's the summer of 1979. You've just graduated high school. You're eighteen and know everything about EVERYTHING, especially music. Then one day, quite by accident, you discover you don't know ANYTHING. It seems that somewhere in merry old England (the armpit of Swindon, I believe) a group of four very sharp young men have created something unlike anything you've ever heard before. Each cut on the album proves to be stranger, fresher, and more glorious than the last. In Roads Girdle the Globe, the guitars sound like steamrollers, the drums like jackhammers. In Millions, the band transports you to the exotic far East, dips you in the Yangtze, rinses years of radio pablum from your spongey little brain. All with guitars ad drums... like the Beatles' loopy cousins sending messages from a parallel universe... Drums and Wires is a freaking revelation. And you know what? Twenty-plus years later, it's still as fresh as the day it was released. It still beats the hell out of anything being recorded today. Drums and Wires is pure XTC. Buy this album, and play it LOUD.

This was the first effort I ever heard by XTC. A local new-wave station was playing "Helicopter" and "Making Plans For Nigel" and I just had to have this. I was in no way disappointed. Still sounds fresh to me today. To me this was thier first great effort, with many more classics to come.

I got exposed to this one a year or so after it came out. I was vulnerable, having grown up on a diet of Manilow and Saturday Night Fever. This one bit me on the bum and never let go. At the time I ljust liked the juxtaposition (though that word was unknown to me at the time) of incredibly catchy pop with nightmarish prolonged forays into anti-pop. In retrospect, this marks the beginning of an astonishing set of albums from middle period XTC: the groundwork is all there in this album though in less polished (more raw!) form. Happy pop ditties, politically/culturally charged lyrics, Dave Gregory's nearly psychotically innovative lead guitar (he'd just joined the group). I wouldn't call this the first XTC album you should buy, but once you've gotten them into your head, this album is the one to go to if you want to see how the next 5 or so came to be.

Clearly, this is the best work from XTC. First heard this in 1982 and had to get the CD to replace my worn out Album. People in this review have pointed out the song "Complicated Game" as unfitting. I feel completely opposite of that. Actually, one of the best songs written by this band, that and "Scissor Man" make this album a must. If you can only own 1 XTC album, this is it. It is the core of the band's sound. Everything after that pales in comparison. Excellent Intellegence.