Metro Pulse/Platters/Elliott Smith, XTC

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This week: Two bittersweet gems and one cranked-up classic

Elliott Smith
Figure 8 (Dreamworks)

Elliott Smith has long seemed as fragile as the late Nick Drake and, for that matter, is as startlingly talented; the two even share an almost inexplicable underdog charm that saves them from unwanted, slicker comparisons. While Smith's earliest outings—Roman Candle, the band Heat Miser and the soundtrack for Good Will Hunting—sated my bittersweet tooth, XO was the record that won my heart. It was the unashamed pop record I'd been waiting for, and the one I keep going back to; since my first listen, I don't think it's ever actually made it to the shelf, having nestled into a permanent place in my frequent flyer stack. It's the rare record that can see you through thick and thin, sunshine happiness and midnight wallowing, swelling crushes and crashing heartbreak and seething-under-the-skin anger.

Now XO has to make room for Figure 8, Smith's latest; which isn't to say my ear is fickle, just that he's managed to quietly seduce me once again. While Smith's chord progressions (played out to great melancholy effect on piano or acoustic guitar) make perfect sense, it's a refreshing twist when his melodies don't follow the predictable "Eleanor Rigby" path; Figure 8 is not a record of throwaway hooks. Opener "Son of Sam" is a sly rambler with a punchy guitar-driven bridge that gives way to a jaunty piano rag; "Stupidity Tries" slides along on a lazy creek of backbeats, drunken strings and lines like "Got a foot in the door/God knows what for"; with its strutting, swaggering, meandering guitar, "Junk Bond Trader" sounds positively California laid-back, but showcases Smith's caged songbird voice (his choirboy "Happy Holidays" seeming to mean anything but) with a slightly sinister underlay of strings. In fact, while the most raucous thing about a song like XO's "Bled White" is the crushing swell of vocal harmony, "L.A." finds Smith (and his guitar) positively energetic, possessed by a buoyancy that, in a clichéd world, might be credited with his move last year to sunny California. It is an optimistic change of pace; is he really singing about the opportunities of a new day, a thankfully relieved refrain of "Last night I was about to throw it all away"? Whatever redemption he's possibly found, it's one that begs to be heard, song-for-song.

—Shelly Ridenour

XTC
Apple Venus Volume Two (Wasp Star) (TVT)

The math doesn't add up: While the surviving Beatles all have rhodium records on their walls (that's 100 million copies sold), those most strongly influenced by the Fab Four have always struggled. From Squeeze to Jellyfish, smart, catchy hooks couched in beatific harmonies have captivated critics but been dismissed by mainstream audiences.

At the head of this neglected class are XTC, who have over the course of two decades built a body of work whose staggering songcraft and meaty hooks should rightly have earned them a rhodium disc, too. But alas, the walls are bare.

That's unlikely to change with Apple Venus Volume Two (Wasp Star), XTC's 13th album and the logical follow-up to last year's Apple Venus Volume One. Both albums stem from years of songwriting by bandleaders Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding during a protracted label dispute, but while Volume One spotlighted XTC's acoustic side, Volume Two returns the band to the jaggedly bouncy guitar rock of their earlier days.

Wasp Star's lyrical tone is immediately striking—after 20 years of semi-obscurity and almost a decade wrangling with a record label, how do these guys come up sounding so sunny? Topic A here is the joy and complications of love (and joy in the complications of love), and while Partridge examines the difficulty of casting off childhood trauma in "Playground" and Moulding laments the decay of his English hometown in "Boarded Up," neither man veers from the subject for long. The straight-up smitten "Stupidly Happy" exemplifies the approach: sweet, honest and irony-free.

The bittersweet end to this story is that while XTC fans will treasure Wasp Star as yet another fine addition to one of the most imposing canons in British pop, the masses will most likely keep looking for the next Limp Bizkit. Their loss.

—Chris Neal