XTC - Mummer

XTC – Mummer

Virgin, 1983

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013
Price: $1.50

I feel like once a Summer I get into a new XTC album. Which XTC album I get into is completely random and left up to chance. That is to say I pick up whichever one shows up on vinyl at the store. How fitting that last year I went completely ape over English Settlement. Mummer is the group’s sixth LP and follow-up to English Settlement. While it lacks a lot of the bombastic pop maneuvers of its predecessor, Mummer is weirder, more acoustic and charming in the sense that every time I listen to an XTC album I feel like I’m a little bit stoned (which is to say I just want to layabout and eat Gardettos, which is exactly what I did when I listened to this album). Somehow XTC manage to come off as almost entirely free of artifice, which feels like a major accomplishment considering the style-over-substance attitude you get from many/most New Wave acts. They just seem like normal dudes which severe gifts for popcraft.