The Big Express [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

XTC's seventh album is viewed by many as one of their weakest and a career nadir, perhaps on the basis of its sleek '80s (over-?)production, not to mention the fact that it was a major commercial failure on its release.

Newcomers to the band should not be deterred, however. Messrs Partridge and Moulding have always been quality songwriters and there's no shortage of top quality material here though, if you're anticipating the band's gentler and more pastoral side, forget it. This is an album that was made to be listened to at volume.

'The Big Express' features three fine, forgotten singles, 'Wake Up', 'All You Pretty Girls' and 'This World Over', while other highlights include the tongue-in-cheek C&W of 'Shake You Donkey Up', the Beatlesy pop of '...Smalltown' and 'You're The Wish...', the steaming discordance of '...Soul Coal' and the wafty, wistful psychedelia of 'Red Brick Dream'.

As any XTC afficionado should tell you, this is a band that has never made a bad album; it's just that some are simply of superior quality. Although, in the humble opinion of this reviewer, 'The Big Express' isn't a classic like, say, 'English Settlement' or 'Skylarking', it's not far off, by any means...

...so buy it, ok?

I have to admit that this is one of my favorite XTC recordings, but at the same time the old Virgin release sounds wooly and quiet. This remaster explodes out of the speakers, and the quieter tunes like "This World Over" are much more present and listenable than on the old release. The packaging is fun, although keeping it together will take some doing. This is a record that even many XTC fans don't own, and they're crazy not to. Songs like "Seagulls Screaming (kiss her kiss her)" and "I Bought Myself a Liarbird" MUST be heard !!!!! No, really.

Rating: 8/10

Best tracks: `Wake Up', `This World Over', `Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her', `All You Pretty Girls', `Shake You Donkey Up'

This, the BIGGEST of all the XTC albums, was the second of the band's LPs made following Andy Partridge's decision to quit touring and focus on the studio. The album before this, Mummer, was a beautiful, soft and exotic thing of beauty, very underrated, but The Big Express is something else, something much, much bigger, a blockbuster in all every way except for the fact that it wasn't a hit. This is despite the fact that all three singles unleashed from it were and still are absolutely amazing! Such a shame. In truth, The Big Express is half a classic album, with the latter run of songs being, initially, a disappointment after such an incredible opening five-in-a-row hit-fest. However, these later songs do reveal their charms eventually, but they're still nowhere near as grand as what comes before it.

Let's start at the start, with the incredible `Wake Up', which is the best opening song to any XTC album. Hmm, wait, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Every XTC album has a fantastic song to open with, so saying `Wake Up' is better than `Making Plans for Nigel', `Runaways', `Summer's Cauldron' and all the others is a bold move. Well, at the very least, it's the most appropriate song to open proceedings with along with `Summer's Cauldron' in that you really get the feeling of a full-length album proper beginning to unfold, or indeed, waking up. This is a Colin Moulding song, and what you notice immediately is the guitars, which sound sharp, clipped, broken down to an almost percussive degree, and then there's the drums themselves, which help contribute to the near-onomatopoeic feeling of a train starting to warm up and head off into the daytime. Given that the closing track is a more obvious simulation of a train winding down to a standstill, this is clearly intentional. `Wake Up' stops-starts, chugs, builds up steam and then really, REALLY gets going for its finale, which is one of the most heavenly, wonderful things in pop music, as the drums go colossal, celestial voices lull us and beckon us, and this genius bit of mad fun-house/sea-side organ hammers away with half-delirious/half-creepy splendour. I love `Wake Up' so much, and it sounds better and better the louder you play it, as does the rest of the album. This is the total opposite of Mummer, which (despite the odd epic track here and there) was a very cosy, intimate album, whereas this is brash, loud and unashamedly immense.

The rest of the album's first side is just as magnificent, be it the rousing, sing-a-long sea shanty of `All You Pretty Girls', which has a fantastic production that exudes the feeling of ships setting sail from summery docks, the frankly bonkers rhythmic shimmy of `Shake You Donkey Up' and the head-over-heels ecstasy of `Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her'. Now this latter song is just perfection, full of goose pimples, the giddying rush of hoping to kiss the one you love but who doesn't know the way you feel and the intoxicating buzz of the sea air. The brass is woozy, the seaside organ infectious and the `if you want her..' mid-section absolutely to die for. Then, then...the album seriously sobers up for `This Whole World', which wakes up from the carefree joy of the last few songs into a post-apocalyptic world where nuclear war has all but destroyed everything. There were lots of pro-disarmament songs and anti-nuclear protest singles during the early to mid eighties, and `This World Over' is one of the most haunting and beautifully judged. The words are evocative and disturbing, and Andy sings them amazingly well over a gorgeous musical backing reminiscent of the very best Police songs, which blossoms into an extraordinary section around the three minute mark which swells and sways into probably Andy's most passionate vocals ever, reaching a remarkable crescendo before everything suddenly hushes and then slowly beats and fades away into the night.

If the rest of The Big Express was as good as this first side, we could be talking about XTC's best album. Yet it wasn't to be - the latter half of the album is merely very good. `Reign of Blows' is probably the best of these songs - a grinding, taut stomper that has some cool steam-powered rhythms and harmonica, while the nicely melodic `I Bought Myself a Liarbird' has nice guitars and a light, affable feel. `(The Everyday Story of) Smalltown' and the bizarrely titled `You're the Wish You Are I Had' are fun knees-up fare, perfectly enjoyable and rambunctious, while `I Remember the Sun' is a slightly-jazz tinged tune, nicely sung by Colin. Then there's the more-is-more, everything-but-the-kitchen sink production of the afore mentioned `Train Running Low on Soul Coal', which is pretty much the loudest thing XTC have ever created; some might find it overcooked, but its grand finale approach is quite exciting, and I like the way the train-mimicking music chugs and whistles until it finally winds down to the end of the line.

All in all, this is yet another excellent XTC album which, for its first five songs at least, represent top-drawer 1980s pop, whilst the remainder will win you over eventually if it doesn't do so at first. Best of the bonus tracks are the gentle acoustic beauty of `Red Brick Dream' and the restless barrel-house piano charge of `Wash Away'.