Prefab Sprout
From Langley Park to Memphis

I reluctantly force myself to write something about Prefab Sprout, even though this time - I tell myself - I'm giving myself a treat for review No. 50. Sure, it would be easy to lavish the usual extravagant praises on Paddy and company, but what would remain then? And above all, if some unfortunate person had never heard a note of theirs and read this writing, what would they take away from it?

And so there is nothing left but to try to describe the album. Yes, but how? All the best adjectives have already been used. Synth-pop tearjerkers, Paddy who has a slap-worthy face but sings and composes divinely, a band that gave its best in its time, and then...and then "Steve McQueen." Yes.

When I look at the cover, I can't help but laugh, I won't hide it. Surely it didn't seem to them that they were overshadowed, after that so evocative image symbolizing the gateway to the treasure of "Steve McQueen." And trying to write a follow-up to that miracle, we know, was practically impossible: too many chords had come together in the right place at the right time, too much magic surrounded those grooves. And yet.

And yet, it so happens that where magic doesn't reach, talent, dedication, or perhaps just huge effort does. Certainly, they aren’t enough to have that extra "something," but you're definitely starting with an advantage. And so this "From Langley Park" is the album where perhaps the effort to avoid making one miss its predecessor is most felt. Not even in "Jordan" is so much dedication heard, because by then they were already in another phase. And then, first and foremost, Paddy. Never heard him sing so well, so expressive, with his heart on his sleeve. In The Golden Calf and the opening The King of Rock n Roll (fancy that) he even rivals Elvis. In Cars and Girls he paints a portrait of lost youth..."some things hurt more, much more than cars and girls". Even in the reinterpretations of "Steve," he manages to add something extra; the concluding Nancy and Venus of the Soup Kitchen are nothing but b-sides of Blueberry Pies and When The Angels, or at least it seems that way to me. And then, there's I Remember That, so elegiac as to be almost immaterial, soft and unreachable. Like the stars: unreachable, but impossible to stop admiring. A tale that isn't a tale, just four minutes of pure and rediscovered enchantment. What else? Stevie Wonder on harmonica in Nightingales and Pete Townshend with the acoustic in Hey Manhattan, but they sound like cameos, nothing more.

So what's wrong, then? A reggae perhaps, which you just wouldn't expect from these guys. Or the ending, slightly underwhelming, but I had already said that. Here, if I had to say what's missing here, perhaps it's just sincerity: the same sincerity that is impossible not to seek after you've heard Bonny or Desire As. Here there's professionalism, immense talent, camaraderie. But everything seems more "constructed," somehow more artificial. Prefab Sprout, you realize at the end of the album (and twenty-six years later), after all had fallen into the trap: they had sought a replica where it was unattainable.

So, what have you said so far, dear reviewer? Everything and its opposite. It's not possible to talk about certain artists with your head, you have to do it with your heart, and your gut. And talk about imperfect albums, but not for that reason undeserving of oblivion. Or not?