XTC:
Wasp Star - Apple Venus Volume 2 (TVT Records)

Billed by XTC fans as the "rock" edition of the band's two-disc return from major-label limbo (like XTC fans would know "rock" if it bit 'em on the ass), this one does indeed turn up the amps and stifle the string section. But while it has its pleasures - "The Man Who Murdered Love," "Standing In For Joe" and, god help me, the one called "The Wheel and the Maypole" - there's nothing here as astonishing as Skylarking's token tempo bender "Earn Enough For Us," just like Volume One didn't offer up its own "Grass." Does that mean Partridge and Moulding have lost their touch? Probably not. But they probably should suck it up and give Todd Rundgren another call.

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