XTC | Drums And Wires | Album

XTX "Drums and Wires" (1979)

LP (NEW) - Vinyl, Ape House, UK, 2020, APELP103, 633367792815, 200g Vinyl, Reissue

When Drums and Wires arrived on Aug. 17, 1979, XTC suddenly found itself hurdling over the many now-forgotten English groups that sprouted in punk's shadow at the end of the decade. Suddenly, XTC mattered. Steve Lillywhite produced the first of two XTC albums helping to steer the previously directionless crew toward a more unified sound. The result was the band's first great album and one its most essential in a catalog that spans more than a dozen LPs. It all starts with Moulding's "Making Plans for Nigel," the album's only single, and one of XTC's best songs, beginning a string of Top 40 hits over the next three years that culminated in the Top 10 "Senses Working Overtime." Drums and Wires helped the band break away from the limitations that were set upon punk, and to a lesser degree New Wave, groups at the time. Even today, Drums and Wires sounds like an unconventional work among the period's angular, arty and evolving New Wave. In a way, it's as close to the Beatles merging of pop melodies and studio invention that any of these bands came. More significantly, Drums and Wires laid out the musical template XTC expanded on over the years. It's a finely tuned 45 minutes of art-rock that shaped a fledgling genre, a blossoming band and a new decade of exciting experiments in sound.

Artist Website: chalkhills.org

More by Artist: XTC

Related Artists: The Dukes of Stratosphear