King Crimson - 'Starless and Bible Black' (Polydor)

Where did the time go? 2018 is not looking like it will match 2017 in terms of Underbite posting productivity. Sorry about that. So, skipping ahead a few, we're into the good Crimson shit now. The lineup has almost completely changed; Greg Lake is out, John Wetton is the new vocalist, and David Cross (no, not the Mr. Show guy) takes care of the non-power trio instruments (viola/violin and keyboards). Bill Bruford is a hell of an upgrade on Michael Giles, and the overall vibe is darker, more cutting, and fierce. Even when singing about ice-cream cones and the devil, it never gets silly as progressive rock often does, and this is progressive rock to a tee. Fripp's guitar tone is sharp, metallic and buzzing, and flashy without being clichéd - he genuinely doesn't sound like any other guitar player I can think of. Even when he rips into a searing, chorus-laden lead line (such as in 'The Night Watch') it feels like it can only be compared to Fripp's other work as it attains a fluidity that I don't remember Yes, ELP, etc having in their sound. Bruford, like all good prog drummers, has clearly studied jazz, and he's an anchor who grounds everything, occasionally poking his way to the foreground but not in a 'solo' way. He's mixed up high enough to be an audible centre when the rest of the band starts to focus on circular, instrumental aggression (such as the end of 'Lament'); they show that collectively, they can just as easily shift into the sneaky improvisations hinted at towards the end of their first album. If later period King Crimson has a reputation of being joyless, they're still having fun here, and the ren-faire trappings have been shaken off. There's still a dedicated lyricist as there was from the beginning, a decision that seems almost admirable. Listening to this now, I keep thinking of the time-signature obsessed wave of indie post-rock in the 90s, following in the wake of Slint and Bitch Magnet and those types of bands. Those bands would have never had vocals like this, but many of the harder surfaces on Starless must have inspired some of them. Fripp's guitar sometimes does the two-hand tap thing, while sometimes is just like a grinding machine (listen to the opening cut, 'The Great Deceiver', for immediate evidence of that), which could be a Don Caballero texture. But there's a tendency towards pure beauty here, which is an admirable one, even if one may not feel that they attain it. Moments of Starless are utterly gorgeous, like the shimmering percussive sheen at the beginning of 'The Night Watch', the way it resolves to silence, and then segues into 'Trio', which is straight and almost neo-classical. The longer pieces on the second side struggle to hold my attentions, but this along with Larks Tongues prove to be the King Crimson records for a 'casual' fan; if only I can remember to listen to it more often.

The Housemartins - 'London 0 Hull 4' (Go Discs)

When I lived in the UK (about a decade ago), Kingston-upon-Hull was the punchline of the entire country, a once-respectable Yorkshire city that had fallen into such decline that it had become synonymous with the idea of hopeless post-Thatcher devastation. One could apparently buy a flat in the city centre for as low as £20,000, and I often suggested that it should be colonised by weirdo artist types since it was affordable and (I assumed, probably incorrectly) somewhat lawless. I didn't know what I was talking about then, so Hull became some sort of symbol to me. I understand that things have picked up somewhat since then, making Hull if not exactly a hotspot of Northern culture certainly an option for people looking to set out and create their own universe. I'd be curious to visit now, as I've only ever driven through the city en route to Zeebrugge (by ferry) and it looked like an interesting place. Certainly it's produced a fair share of notable musicians over the years - Throbbing Gristle, Mick Ronson, Luke Poot, Aby Vulliamy - and of course the Housemartins. Now I suspect they're almost forgotten, just a footnote to the career of bassist Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim aka a million other things, or the precursor to the Beautiful South, a band I never listened to but always imagined were pretty good. This is 1986, the year of the famous C-86 compilation which the Housemartins are not on, but could be. This is indie music with a folky, white soul edge, and the band was aggressively independent and aggressively socialist. The inner sleeve contains some handwritten words to inspire the masses, with 'Take Jesus - Take Marx - Take Hope' at the bottom, and these are the majority of the lyrical themes. 'Flag Day' is the most memorable song, an anti-patriotic ballad which stretches Paul Heaton's voice to its most emotive, drawn over it's slow pace. It's probably the classic cut from the album but it's not my favourite - I prefer the Housemartins when they're more uptempo, such as 'We're Not Deep' or 'Get Up Off Our Knees'; the latter is a stomping attack on the ruling class, with the necessary inspirational chorus that makes pop music great. The Housemartins lyrics are a little bit superficial, but thats not really a problem - it's probably one of the reasons this record ages so well. And maybe that's what 'We're Not Deep' is about, but the anger is cut with a healthy dose of sunshine (and some ba-ba-bas). London 0 Hull 4 (a great title, though illogical, since there is no football team just called 'London', and the score would be more accurately written as 'London 0 - 4 Hull' anyway, a nice away win for Hull City A.F.C, unless it just refers to the number of musicians from Hull vs the number from London) definitely sounds like it's from the 80s, but the decay of the North is felt more than explicitly discussed, and there's a driving optimism throughout. 'Happy Hour', which bears a bit of resemblance to 'Sheep' (and each start the two sides of the record), is another unforgettable pop song, though over the years I've enjoyed it (about 20 now) I never have been clear what it's about - a female immigrant bartender putting up with sexual harassment is my best guess. A cover of 'Lean on Me' (but not the Bill Withers tune, another one) and 'Flag Day' are the only two really slow songs, and thus where the soul aspect comes out the most, and these white Northerners are pretty convincing. The piano playing on 'Lean on Me' particularly exemplifies this, as it leans into the dramatic builds and Heaton's soaring voice reveals a depth not often found in late 80s British jangle-pop. There's not a dud on London 0 Hull 4 and I always think this surpassed their followup album, with the brilliant name The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death, though weirdly I've never found a cheap copy of that so we'll have to move past it.

Roy Harper - 'Lifemask' (Chrysalis)

This one tends to get passed over, falling among a run of far better albums, and my memory of the sound is that its all clangy electric guitars mostly strummed without much accompaniment. Side two is given over entirely to 'The Lords Prayer', which may be the longest of all Harper songs but it lacks the dynamic magic of some of this other great long pieces. But side one is bookended by great songs, 'Highway Blues' and 'South Africa'. The latter is a perfect little love song (I have no idea why it's titled such), with swirling, multi-tracked guitars and layers of voice giving it an ethereal 4AD sound, a decade before that was a thing. On this song the heavy-handed production (engineered by John Leckie, who did the next few Harper albums too) works, but in other places I find it to be a bit much. Compared to Stormcock, there isn't really that many more affectations on the instruments, and the synths are mostly held to 'Highway Blues' and 'The Lord's Prayer'. What's missing here is the pastoral feeling, the classic folkie sound which is a conventional thing for me to pine for, but whatever - it's something I love about Harper. That chilling feeling is only really present in 'All Ireland'; the rest of Lifemask is given over to more prog-leaning material. 'Highway Blues' is still a good song, with quintessentially Harperian rambling lyrics, and huge vocal explosions. And of course 'The Lords Prayer', over half of the record, has its moments. It's a song written while Harper was dangerously ill, and as an example of him trying to pack everything possible into one song it's fascinating, with the lyrics thankfully printed out so you can realise that most of them are lines beginning with 'whose...'. But sung and put into a 22 minute song with Jimmy Page and a full band, it somehow just becomes a mess. The man is capable of writing a super catchy pop song and there's none of that here - not a hook to hold onto, and the long spoken introduction establishes a nice podcast atmosphere but the rest of the song doesn't hold up. The 'introduction' to the liner notes is a somewhat whiny screed about his lack of commercial success and in the credits he mentions that one assistant engineer couldn't handle working on 'The Lords Prayer' which maybe should have been a sign. But the man's work has been so stellar to this point that I've overlooked this misstep, and the record which follows more than makes up for the dearth of delicate, romantic love songs. Apparently most version of Lifemask came as a cool gatefold that opened up around his face, but this Chrysalis issue takes the cheap route, so that could be another reason I'm grumpy about this particular record.

Felt - 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty' (Cherry Red)

Before I ever heard Felt, I read a review of this record and decided they would get points for the title alone. Here's the establishment of the beta-male guitar-god; where jangle climbs the throne and the clean channel rules supreme. It starts with an instrumental, the lengthy 'Evergreen Dazed', which introduces the Felt sound - two tinny guitars, lots of reverb, and a plodding drummer. The lead parts are moody, built around descending melodies and never too flashy. Here, the instruments ring and ring and ring, and when the voice is present (all songs sung by Felt mastermind Lawrence, who I assume is the guy pictured on the front), it's breathy and minus any rock and roll histrionics. This is about as far from Led Zeppelin as rock music can possibly be, and is in alignment with the other plans for the genre established by their brethren of the early 80s - the Cure, Durutti Column, etc. I admit that even though the point of this project is to give these records the solid decent listen they deserve, I found myself tuning out the vocals entirely, letting the guitars carry me into some sort of somnambulistic state. Thus, I'm not sure if the poem 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty' printed on the sleeve contains actual lyrics (since there is no song by this name) or is merely a poem; it does contain the line 'Dazed like evergreen' at the end, but that song is an instrumental. So Lawrence writes and sings lyrics but then only prints entirely different ones on the sleeve - that's something Michael Stipe hadn't even thought of. But back to the music - six long songs, a half-hour total, and it melts into something that feels like a 'statement'. When there's rhythm guitar, it might have a little distortion but from the natural fuzz of an amplifier, as opposed to anything more grungy. The opening chugga-chug of 'Cathedral' feels like something solid you can dig your feet into, planting like roots, and the whole record ends with 'Templeroy', petering out rather than exploding or burning or whatever impulse rock music often tends to produce. This is their debut and I don't really know anything else by them, figuring I'd always find more Felt LPs lying around during my years in the UK (I didn't).