Robyn Hitchcock
Moss Elixir

THE REVIEW

"Hitchcock is transforming from Syd Barrett into John Lennon", it may well be an amusing provocation, but Robyn's Barrett-like attempts have always caused me a certain embarrassment. However, Moss Elixir is a well-structured album, no longer "Beatlesque" or a fake of much of the work of the Egyptians (the most scandalous peaks remain on Element of Light); the lack of melodic hooks, which so scandalizes Scaruffi here, requires repeated listening: Heliotrope, Filthy Bird, Sinister But She Was Happy are gems of his entire career, arranged moreover with sparse timbral wisdom (the sound is particularly well-crafted, perhaps due to the increased availability of time and funds resulting from the move to Warner Bros.); elsewhere one can breathe a good air of competent singer-songwriter craftsmanship, as in Beautiful Queen, The Speed of Things (rural semigospel in the style of Each of Her Silver Wands).

A couple of slip-ups (primarily the shameful Alright, Yeah) can be forgiven.

This is not the Soft Boys and not the quirky minstrel of Eye, this is the mature Hitchcock.