Obscure, but should not be
David Stanley | New York, NY USA | 06/08/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I'd heard of the Lilac Time over the years, having first been turned onto Stephen Duffy with his "Kiss Me" single in the '80s. Flipping through dusty record bins, I'd see the Lilac Time albums but wasn't sure whether to pick them up (though I have kept up a bit with Stephen Duffy in his "Devils" and Robbie Williams phases). Finally, in London a few months ago, I saw the remastered versions of these Lilac Time albums and picked up this one on a whim. I'm a sucker for remastered anything with bonus tracks. I absolutely love it. It's this incredible undiscovered gem. Well, undiscovered by me, though when I Google Lilac Time, I've found very little information on them at all. But Stephen Duffy is all over the place, having had so many incarnations (as the first lead singer of Duran Duran), as "Tin Tin" and himself solo, and with a huge body of work with Lilac Time and so it's a mystery why he isn't well-known. Well, at least Robbie Williams knew who he was and though their collaboration was good, it wasn't quite up to Stephen Duffy's other incarnations.
Back to this album, since it's my first Lilac Time purchase, I can't claim to know the ins and outs and breadth of their sound, but from what I understand, it's a change from the sound of their first two albums. It was produced mostly by Andy Partridge of XTC and has a bit of his influence in a few songs in the rhythms, but there's also some Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, and other '60s sounds but original at the same time. Which makes me wonder why Lilac Time is so obscure. There's one instrumental called "Skabaskiblio" played with an out of tune piano and amazingly, it works--it's quite poignant and completely original. My favorite song is "Wait and See", a quiet song with a stomping rhythm that becomes increasingly disturbing as it continues. My other favorites are "Fields" (the most XTC-like of the songs), "All For Love and Love For All", "The Laundry" (with the lyric, "Nobody grows old, we just crease and fold like the laundry"), and "And On We Go" (could have fit on "Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme", though the bonus tracks are just as good or better, which is not the case with most bonus tracks on these reissues.
Just an overall astonishing find for me and one I feel I need to champion, especially in a time when radio is so unlistenable."
Track Listings (22) - Disc #1