Soft Boys, The

After making a landmark album like Underwater Moonlight, you don't want to rush right into a follow-up. So the Soft Boys took a little break. Alright, so it was more like 22 years, but some things take time. Not a comeback, not a reunion and definitely not a retread, Nextdoorland is pure and simply, the next Soft Boys album. The Moonlight lineup of Robyn Hitchcock (vocals, guitar), Kimberley Rew (guitar), Matthew Seligman (bass) and Morris Windsor (drums) is once again intact. Longtime fans will recognize that two-guitar sound, the sweet-and-twisted pop hooks, Hitchcock's distinctive voice and his lyrical venom and wit.

Formed in Cambridge, England just before punk hit, the Soft Boys displayed a remarkable ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Beatles-meets-Beefheart sound of their debut album, A Can of Bees, might have grabbed a big audience if they'd had the right label and management; they didn't and it didn't. Yet the band played a few inspired shows that have since turned up on an assortment of reissues and bootlegs.

A classic last-ditch effort, Underwater Moonlight was made for cheap when the group was close to breakup. It found Hitchcock's songwriting coming into brilliance; and the band blasting like it had nothing to lose. Though it didn't even get a US release at the time, enough copies snuck into import bins and the record's stature just kept growing over the years; as many songs became staples at Hitchcock's solo shows. It didn't hurt that the leadoff track, "I Wanna Destroy You," was covered by both Uncle Tupelo and The Replacements in concert.

The 1981 follow-up turned into Hitchcock's solo debut, Black Snake Diamond Role, and the band members went off in various directions. Rew formed Katrina & the Waves and wrote them a big hit single ("Walking On Sunshine"), along with the non-hit (but classic anyway) "Going Down to Liverpool." Seligman worked with David Bowie and Thomas Dolby, performing with both at Live Aid. Windsor stuck around and played drums with Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians. And of course Hitchcock became a prolific singer, songwriter, visual artist, movie star (Jonathan Demme's "Storefront Hitchcock"), and cult hero extraordinaire.

Everybody played with everybody else at some point; even the long-out of touch Hitchcock and Rew wound up on each other's recent solo albums. So when Matador released an expanded version of Underwater Moonlight last year, it was time for the Soft Boys to play their first, full-fledged American tour; which began with a memorable show at South by Southwest in Austin (fans can download performances from the tour at the band's site, www.underwatermoonlight.com). Alongside most of their oldies and new arrangements of Hitchcock songs, the shows featured a handful of newly-written tunes - In fact they'd started recording even before the tour began. "Reassembling the Soft Boys was an excuse to make a new record," Hitchcock says.

From the start, Nextdoorland is absolutely the Soft Boys. The scathing Hitchcock/Rew guitar sound is all over it; so are the killer hooks and harmonies. Hitchcock once claimed he'd outgrown loud rock 'n'roll. Listen to "Unprotected Love" for proof that he's changed his mind. The band's darker side is represented in the chaotic "Strings." But they're no longer allergic to slower tempos or warmer sentiments: "Pulse of My Heart" and "La Cherite" are the kind of gorgeous, between-the-eyes pop songs they wouldn't dare play in the old days.

“The weather conditions inside the group have changed immensely” Hitchcock says, ”however the biggest change has been in the musical climate outside. In 1980 we were considered dangerously retro. Lenny Kravitz was yet to buy his first pair of shades, and Liam Gallagher probably hadn’t smoked his first cigarette. Nowadays, the kind of music we play is seen as a classic rock template”

"Whatever people may make of my lyrics, the Soft Boys' music belongs far more in 2002 than it did in 1980. For once, we're on time."