The Soft Boys

One could argue that one of the reasons the Soft Boys' music still sounds so fresh today was in 1980 they managed to be ahead of the times and behind the times all at once. While their sharp intelligence, wiry melodies, veddy sophisticated wit, and cool yet powerful twin-guitar attack anticipated post-punk and indie rock by several years (especially R.E.M. and the Paisley Underground crowd), their obvious love of psychedelia (in particular Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and Capt. Beefheart), Byrds-style harmonies, and sterling chops made them seem like '60s throwbacks in the midst of the first punk era. As a result, the band's masterful second album, Underwater Moonlight, had to wait to find its audience until years after the band broke up in 1981. In time for the disc's 21st birthday, Matador has released Underwater Moonlight...And How It Got There, a greatly expanded two-CD edition of the album which offers 26 (mostly) strong bonus tracks in addition to the album's ten superb songs. Disc one features Underwater Moonlight in its original sequence, along with nine bonus tunes from the same sessions; nearly all this material appeared on Rykodisc's previous reissue of the album, but this edition also adds the fine "He's a Reptile." The second disc offers up the real archeological prize -- nearly an hour of Soft Boys rehearsal tapes (in good if not spectacular fidelity), which finds the band in superb form (especially the guitars of Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew and the drumming by Morris Windsor) and unearths several undocumented Soft Boys tunes, including the sublime "Like a Real Smoothie," "She Wears My Hair," and "Amputated." While it's taken awhile for people to realize just how good and how important the Soft Boys were as a band, Underwater Moonlight...And How It Got There gives the group's finest album the royal treatment it so richly deserves (including remastering and liner notes by David Fricke), and it still stands as a work of left-field genius. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide