The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight (1980)

The soft boys have a peculiar mix of influences and underwater moonlight exemplifies that wonderfully. They wear their influences on their sleeves(The Beatles, Syd Barret, The Byrds), but on this album they have enough originality to make it their own. Robyn Hithcock's lyrics are best described as arranged stream of conscience...being that he'll take random, off kilter thoughts and put them together to make a cohesive theme(most of the time). The music provides a superb backdrop to this. The band are very tight players(not in the sessionman sense)and stylistically diverse as well. Whether playing hyper rock & roll(i wanna destroy you), jangly pop(the queen of eyes), or loopy krautrock-ish instrumentals(you'll have to go sideways), the band pulls it off with ease. If you're a fan of late 70's-early 80's British music (Wire, Gang of Four, Joy Division, etc.), but get tired of the gloominess and (sometimes) pretentiousness of it. Then this album is your swan song. <--Yes I did just say that. Buy it
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