Review Summary: A rushed failed attempt at a band trying to find their sound.
XTC is an influential sometimes overlooked late 70s / 80s alternative rock band. Going on to influence indie rock darlings like Modest Mouse and Britpop vanguards such as Blur, XTC also had to find their footing. Before Drum and Wires, XTC were still trying to find their pastel of sounds, White Music was an okay somewhat derivative punk rock album.” Go 2 is a famous example of a sophomoric slump in new wave music.
Outside of “Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go)” - a song that sounds like an acid trip gone wrong - and “Crowded Room”, the album is forgettable besides its Hipgnosis produced album cover. Moulding has four contributions to the album. That is more than what he had on Black Sea (2 to be exact), but one of those songs was “Generals and Majors.” Moulding did not write anything akin or in the same level of pop expertise. “Buzzcity Talking” has no rhythm to it and feels all over the place. Its only caveat is a random stacchio solo before the outro being one of more memorable parts on the album. “Crowded Room” is tighter, sounds more like what you would expect the sophomore effort by XTC to sound like; Power chord post-punk with a… (yeah that acid drenched keyboard has to go.) danceable punch. “The Rhythm” goes nowhere and is throwaway pop filler. “We have the rhythm in our head” Do we? Elevator music is more rememberable and less rudimentary.
“Super-Tuff”, a morose tragic case of XTC parroting boring Police cosplay imitating done by Barry Andrews, the keyboardist, he didn’t fit in XTC for a reason. Andrews contributed two songs to the album and honestly it is better he didn’t. His singing is comparable to Al Jorgensen doing a terrible British accent and Andrews was born in England! “My Weapon” works better than “Super-Tuff” because of the Talking Heads/Wire/Magazine influenced bass line. That is until you realize it is about his penis and him trying to get laid… At least Partridge was more cleaver with his double entendre, geez…
Does Partridge come in and save the day with a few deep cuts or gems for the patient listener? No. On Go 2, Moulding has issues with crafting underbaked, raw, and rudimentary songs. Partridge has the exact opposite problem sans “Jumping in Gomorrah” - one of the too short highlights on the album. It feels like Partridge offered up brick hard bread to go with watered down soup. This is indeed a band still trying to find their sound. You hear glimpses of their future sounds but nothing polished, edited down, or refined outside of the single “Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go).” That song gives you false that the album will be somewhat decent and cohesive. No. Following it up as track #2 is “Battery Brides” which the instrumental in of itself is okay - downtempo angular post-punk/new wave albeit subdued. Partridge alternates between a Byrne-like deadpan delivery and his usual paranoid delivery. It drags on for almost five minutes. This song is probably the most emblematic of the album. It feels like it needed to go through a few different workshops/sessions before being published.
That is the main problem with this album overall. Some of the songs like “Red”, “Jumping in Gomorrah”, “Buzzcity Talking”, “The Rhythm” need more lines, sustenance; songs like “Battery Brides”, “Beatown”, “Life is Good in the Greenhouse”, and “I Am the Audience” (works better sped up akin to “Crowded Room”) would benefit from fat trimming, tighter instrumentation arrangements; or erase completely from existence “My Weapon”, “Super-Tuff”, and the completely annoying “Beatown.” Thank goodness they got their shit together on Drums and Wires, their third album / true debut album.
Highlights : “Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go)”, “Crowded Room”, and “Jumping in Gomorrah”
