White Bread Black Beer
If you haven't listened to Scritti Politti'sCupid & Psyche '85lately, you may be shocked at how well it holds up. With the hyper-literate songwriting chops of XTC and a fluffy electronic sheen that remains highly influential, the damn thing is better than it ever was, filled with impossible sweetness and glistening pop songs that were--despite the helium lightness of Green Gartside's voice--deceptively ballsy. 20 years later,White Bread Black Beerflaunts many of the same qualities. Gartside may be in his 50s, but he's still pure High Fructose with his candy-colored saccharine tones, linguistic non-sequiturs (see "The Boom Boom Bap") and sweet--but blunt--atheism ("After Six").Beercompletely ditches the strong hip-hop influence of SP's last "comeback" album, 1999'sAnomie & Bonhomieand replaces it with quieter, softer textures and ballads. Then again, the whole thing was recorded in the back room of Gartside's Hackney apartment so maybe he just lacked the production oomph to jazz it up properly. Not that it matters;Beermight be a relatively hushed and less exuberant record, but it's unmistakably Scritti Politti, bursting with a twinkling, bright likeability that makes us grateful for anything Gartside manages to release.--Matthew Cooke