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Nextdoorland The Soft Boys Matador Records, 2002
Buy it online
Reviewed by Brian James
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It's hard to take the latter half of the Soft Boys' name seriously when their leader, Robyn Hitchcock, appears on the back of their new album with a full head of gray hair. But the chutzpah it took to acknowledge that contradiction is nothing compared to what the Soft Boys are showing with Nextdoorland. They haven't had a record out since 1980's Underwater Moonlight, and it doesn't help to ease expectations any that that platter was eventually recognized as a masterpiece. Their legend was cinched when they broke up soon afterwards, burning out while letting Hitchcock do the fading away in an erratic solo career. (I'm not sure what verb to apply to lead guitarist Kimberly Rew, who penned "Walking on Sunshine" with Katrina and the Waves.) Still, it must be tempting to bask in the stature that they've gained over the years, especially when they had so criminally little of it when they were together the first time. To answer the question that is surely on the minds of many fans, no, Nextdoorland is not on par with Underwater Moonlight, but no one should really expect it to be. Anyone who doesn't realize how much easier it is to be a genius in your 20s than it is in your late 40s has obviously never tried. Still comeback albums, even though they almost invariably miss the marks set by the artists in their greener years, can be successes or failures based primarily on how well or poorly they steer clear of a fairly standard set of comeback pitfalls. To begin with, comebacks tend to fail when the people involved do a meager impression of their vintage selves. For every Iggy Pop who's still crazy after all these years, there are countless invalid Jimmy Pages, doddering around on stage and lapping up whatever sympathy applause they get for their sickly rock moves. Second, comebacks fail when the band doesn't work as a unit, ignoring the differences between collaborating and telling session men what to do on a solo outing. Third, comebacks fail when bands settle for being polished and plain, offering up albums that make no more profound an artistic statement than instrumental competence. Fourth, and perhaps most important, comebacks fail when bands spread their ideas out over too many songs. Sometimes, it doesn't take very many tunes to exhaust the supply, but however long the track list is, you can spot these duds whenever the songs present all their material in the first minute but run on for another five. On "I Love Lucy," the first track from Nextdoorland, the Soft Boys sound as if they stand fiercely resistant to being sanitized the way so many of their peers have been. It's immediately apparent that their fire has not yet gone out and that the signature guitars of Hitchcock and Rew have collected little dust in the intervening decades. They even choose to stretch out in the Television-like second half of "Mr. Kennedy," and the fact that it ends up as the strongest track of the album is a testament to their considerable grace and power as musicians. The entire band is in fine form throughout Nextdoorland, locking in tight and staying that way, and the age of Hitchcock's voice is given away only by the occasional pleasant creak. This takes care of the first three pitfalls, and Hitchcock avoids the fourth by knocking most of his song structures around quite a bit before he's done with them. This would be a good thing for anyone, but it is especially so for The Soft Boys, a band that, at their peak, were daredevils of the musical twist and turn. Without the ambition on display here, Nextdoorland would have been stillborn, but thankfully, the Boys are as much in love with adventure as ever. Nextdoorland may signal a welcome return for a fantastic band, but that doesn't mean that it's flawless. Its major shortcoming is that it lacks the inimitable hooks that made so much of the Soft Boys' work such a joy. Many other bands of advancing years show you a riff without including the surrounding idiosyncrasies that make good songs great. The Soft Boys, on the other hand, change the scenery often enough and fill in the details the way they should but fail to deliver a truly infectious chorus or a bit of inspired wackiness like "(I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp." These comparisons, though, are perhaps unfair. If Nextdoorland sometimes coasts by on the charm of sounding like the Soft Boys, well, they're the ones who've earned it. Nextdoorland shouldn't be the first purchase in a Soft Boys collection, and with only two other albums on the roster, it's probably the last, but it has succeeded in making any good collection of the group incomplete at just A Can of Bees and Underwater Moonlight. | November 2002
Brian James is a freelance writer and musician based in Chicago. His writings pop up here and there on assorted music sites. |
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