Soft Boys
Underwater Moonlight
[Matador]
Rating: 8.5
If rock and roll is, as it's always been hyped, the music of demonic teenage
possession, of raving thugs and floozies possessed by illegal chemicals and
their own lower extremities, then how come so much of it's about being
uncomfortable? Few rock songs have been written solely about the explosive,
orgiastic joy of unbound pleasure. In fact, most deal with the stress, anxiety
and loathing that results from a lack of contentedness. And even songs that
do focus on satisfaction generally mention the stress, anxiety and loathing
that results from too much of it. Boiled down to its essence, rock and roll
isn't about the wild pleasures of having a good time; it's about-- all together,
now-- stress, anxiety and loathing. Of course, with such a set of themes, the
question becomes, "What are you supposed to do with this mess?"
No group has ever drawn a bead on this problem like the Soft Boys. Their
definitive statement on the subject, Underwater Moonlight, taps into
all the icky, oozing rage and fear that are necessary parts of adolescence,
and, thus, the primary interests of its ideal audience. Thanks to both the
roiling undercurrents of the music and the vague, paranoid rantings of
singer/guitarist/songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, Underwater Moonlight
sounds like a record by the nicest bar band in Freud's crazed Id. And as an
added bonus, the album's not nearly as bleak and freaky as that description
suggests. It's the darkest, heaviest light pop album anyone's ever made.
Freshly reissued by Matador, Underwater Moonlight presents the classic
Soft Boys lineup-- Hitchcock, guitarist Kimberly Rew, bassist Matthew Seligman,
and drummer Morris Windsor-- as the Band of the Avenging Dorks Who Can't Get
Laid. Though the bonus set of unreleased demos from the period certainly
sweetens the deal, the real show here is all in the original LP. Playing
honeyed pop songs with punk fury, the Soft Boys ran through tracks like "I
Wanna Destroy You" at breakneck pace, all the while dishing up Byrdsy
harmonies and jangling guitars.
Hitchcock, who came off like a fey, scarf-wearing art student in the middle of
a psychopathic killing spree, slurred angst-ridden, surreal images about sex
and death and loathing and rot and ruin, and the joy of it all. Take, for
example, the throbbing "I Got the Hots," the band's endearing take on wooing:
"Said the dentures to the peach/ Said the tide of filth to the bleach/ Said
the spike to the tomato/ Said the curry to the corpse/ I got the hots for
you." Fun stuff, assuredly, but not exactly the make-out record of the year.
To somehow explain the weirdo menace of the production, liner-note writer
David Fricke describes the circumstances of its creation. The album was made,
apparently, under horribly stressful circumstances, with the band rehearsing
in a humid little shack and recording under brutal low-tech conditions.
Completely out of favor with the hipster record industry of the day, the band
ended up initially releasing the thing themselves. That stress can be heard
throughout the album: Rew knocks off genial pop riffs that conceal sharpened
fangs; Seligman thumbs his bass like he's auditioning for hell's blues-rock
band; and Hitchcock spits out stories about lamps and bugs and people who
turn into animals. Anyone put off by the endearingly hippyish novelty act
Hitchcock has become of late will be surprised to hear how genuinely monstrous
he manages to sound on these sides.
Whereas a lot of new-wave and punk reissues end up disappointing due to the
datedness of older band's sounds, the Soft Boys seem more timeless than
timed-out. Though they hardly sound of a piece with the art-rock of the
modern day (no 20-minute, drum-and-bass instrumentals here, kids), they don't
really fit in anywhere else, either. Instead, their peculiar fusion of the
sexy and the creepy exists in an odd little world of its own. Though there
are certainly reference points shared with glam, punk and folk rock, the
claustrophobic-but-bouncy attack Underwater Moonlight exhibits is
another thing entirely. This is all that stress, anxiety and loathing
percolating under every great rock song, and made to dance in front of the
crowd.
In the end, of course, the power of the Soft Boys' music remains intact largely
because of their strangeness. Because nobody's ever made a record that sounds
exactly like this, or that even comes close to mining its depths of weird
vigor, Underwater Moonlight ends up being that much more fascinating a
listen. Turns out all that stress, anxiety and loathing are good for something
after all.
-Sam Eccleston