SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: XTC – THE BIG EXPRESS (THE SURROUND SOUND SERIES)

XTC
THE BIG EXPRESS (THE SURROUND SOUND SERIES)
PANEGYRIC

By the time XTC recorded their seventh album, The Big Express in 1984, they had moved on from their post punk/new wave origins. While their early albums packed a punch and are full of great songs, The Big Express marked another turning point for the band. They were now writing more intricate and more developed songs. If English Settlement was their White Album, then The Big Express was their Sgt Pepper. Given that the band, like The Beatles, had now given up on touring, they focused on their work in the studio.

Musically, The Big Express showed a much more mature and musically inclined band. Songs like “Seagulls Scream Kiss Her Kiss Her” or Colin Moulding’s “I Remember The Sun”. Musically, the songs are very different from anything the band had attempted up to this point. Working with David Lord (Peter Gabriel) no doubt had an influence on the overall sound. “All You Pretty Girls”, for example, features military drums and a choir, created using a mellotron. The effect is stirring, and the song stands alone in the XTC catalogue.

Steven Wilson has remixed the album, and for the first time, in Dolby Atmos sound. Three tracks have also been added: “Red Brick Dream” (the B-side to “All You Pretty Girls”); “Washaway” (another B-side for “All You Pretty Girls”); and “Blue Overall” (B-side to “The World Over”). All three tracks have been criminally overlooked as B-sides and should have been on the original album. However, vinyl time constraints perhaps dictated the songs being relegated to flipsides. Here, they sound like they have made their way home.

The Blu-ray version features instrumental versions and outtakes and makes for interesting listening, but perhaps for the diehard XTC fans only. However, some of the songs are extremely interesting and very good. “Now We Are All Dead (It Doesn’t Matter)” and “War Dance” are two great songs that are lost gems. The main attraction is the new version of the album. In Wilson’s hands, the album becomes a bit more spacious and in many ways a lot lighter than previously heard.

The Big Express is a brilliant album, and, full disclosure, my favourite XTC album. Here, it does sound different and a little updated, and that is what makes this new version so essential. The original production let the album down, but the production did date it.  Here, Wilson brings it alive with a timeless new mix that does not detract from the original but rather allows the listener to hear it in a whole new light.

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