The Washington Post
November 20, 1991
Recordings
Music That Travels
Singer-Songwriters Bragg, Hitchcock & Cole
by Mark Jenkins
Within the relatively limited confines of the United Kingdom, Billy Bragg, Robyn Hitchcock and Lloyd Cole came from very different places. Londoner Bragg set out to marry Punk's intensity to populist Folk music; Hitchcock began with the Cambridge-based Soft Boys, who led a Punk-era Psychedelic-Folk-Rock counterinsurgency; and Cole came to prominence as part of the anti-Rock scene that grew out of Glasgow's Postcard label in the early '80s. All have strong ties to The United States, though, and two have settled here, Cole in New York and Hitchcock not far from Washington. Bragg, whose have-guitar-will-travel approach has taken him to just about every country that allows leftist hootenannies, shows no sign of settling in anywhere.
Robyn Hitchcock And the Egyptians: Perspex Island
"Is this love?" were the first words on Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians' last album, Queen Elvis, which never quite resolved the question but hinted that the answer was yes. Elvis was the most forthright album of the singer's peculiar 14-year recording career, but his new Perspex Island (A&M) is even more direct. Its sprightly central song asks, "So You Think You're in Love", and quickly responds, "Yes, you probably are".
Such a conclusion wouldn't be so astonishing coming from most anyone else, but Hitchcock has frequently run the risk of vanishing into the thicket of his own overgrown whimsy. Perspex Island has its share of absurdist metaphors and uptight imagery -- "I was born with trousers on", explains the former Soft Boy in the title song -- but love has clearly released him from the suffocating silliness of much of his earlier work. Since his songcraft hasn't deserted him as he's sobered up, Island joins Queen among Hitchcock's most appealing records. Longtime followers may complain that the singer has lost his edge -- though he's still dialing up the Grim Reaper on "Vegetation and Dimes" and chasing phantasms on "She Doesn't Exist" -- but Hitchcock's move toward the mainstream has paid off far more than it's cost.
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