Track Listing

1. Runaways
2. Ball and Chain
3. Senses Working Overtime
4. Jason and the Argonauts
5. No Thugs in Our House
6. Yacht Dance
7. All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)
8. Melt the Guns
9. Leisure
10. It's Nearly Africa
11. Knuckle Down
12. Fly on the Wall
13. Down in the Cockpit
14. English Roundabout
15. Snowman

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24030 in Music
• Released on: 2002-06-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
Remastered reissue of 1982 album features the classic 'Senses Working Overtime'. Virgin Records. 2001.

Amazon.com essential recording
English Settlement is a watershed work for XTC that provides a valuable link between the band they had been (caustic, high pitched, and quirky) and the band they became (sublime, pastoral, and still undeniably quirky). It reveals a band in transition, coming only months before swearing off touring, due to Andy Partridge's stage fright, and the subsequent departure of drummer Terry Chambers. Despite the internal hemorrhaging, or perhaps because of it, XTC produced their finest record. English Settlement deals largely with the horrors of modern life and ordinary people's attempts to make sense of it all. Racism, violence, and the senseless proliferation of weapons are ingeniously examined in songs such as "Runaways," "No Thugs in Our House," and "Melt the Guns." The record's finest moment, however, plays against these horrors with "Senses Working Overtime," a pastoral piece celebrating life and all its simple wonders--the beautiful as well as the commonplace. With its majestic, sweeping chorus and hilarious lyrics, "Senses" laid the groundwork for XTC's '80s sound and established Andy Partridge alongside Elvis Costello as one of England's premier songwriters. The album also features two of bassist Colin Moulding's finest compositions: the frenetic "English Roundabout," which builds the narrator's disgruntlement with a delirious, staccato guitar attack, and "Ball and Chain," a compelling plea for landmark conservation that would have fit flawlessly on the Kinks' reactionary manifesto, The Village Green Preservation Society. This was the last time XTC would record as a bona fide rock quartet and it presents the band at the height of its playful glory as they enthusiastically trip down a fertile new path into uncharted territory. --Paul Ducey

Customer Reviews

Perhaps the quintessential XTC CD ...
"English Settlement" is nothing short of brilliant. Guitars ring as the chords arc upward; insistent, arousing drumbeats backdrop Andy Partridge's gracefully-soaring vocals ("All Of A Sudden [It's Too Late]") which then assume a driven, frenetic edge ("No Thugs In Our House") before settling down to give you the elegant "Yacht Dance", then getting you up out of your seat again with "Melt The Guns" and "It's Nearly Africa". With this CD, it seems as if XTC have created a musical panoply of just about any and every mood a modern pop group could create. The wealth of creativity that has always existed in this band is immediately obvious even to listeners just taking their first tastes of the boys from Swindon.

"English Settlement" was perhaps the work that put Andy Partridge on the same song-writing level as Elvis Costello. Colin Moulding, too, the group's bassist and other song-writer, holds his own here as well. There's literally been no one like them before or since.

No matter what mood I'm in or where I am, if someone suggests putting this on the CD player, I never say, "No."

If you love XTC, this CD will be uppermost in your collection. If you're just starting out, after you've sampled "Upsy Daisy Assortment", try "English Settlement". You'll be enchanted; you'll be hooked; you'll wonder why the hell you're listening to anyone else.

The world needs more XTC.

Terry Chambers
I have no idea why Andy Partridge belittles Terry Chamber's contributions to the band these days but the evidence is in sound. Except for "Beating of Hearts" on Murmur, the rhythm that defined early XTC is lost. Though most fans came in during Skylarking which featured more guitar centered music and Dave Gregory, I prefer the early music because the Moulding-Chambers rhythm section was one of the most advanced and ground breaking elements that turned many of us early listeners on to this band.

Colin was also an incredible song writer for the brief moments between Drums and Wires to this album. Runaways, Fly on the Wall, English Round-a-bout (referencial to English Settlement in opposition) and Ball and Chain are among his best lyrically and musically and his vocals were much better back then. Colin and Andy have more vocal presence in each other's songs with them trading vocal lines often here as in Snowman, Leisure and Jason and the Argonauts.

Back then, Andy's photo was not sprayed all over the place as on later albums. They were still considered a band (with all of them in equal placement in band photos) and the arrangements sound more like band arrangements. And this is what made them XTC and not Andy and the boys.

Which comes to why this is the best XTC recording and why they will never top it. It is Terry Chambers and Colin Moulding in top form. Just listen to "It's Nearly Africa" at the complex drum beat that suddenly gets tranformed into another rhythm by the simple aplication of the Bass. There are so many textures as the guitars take a back seat (as in most of this album, the guitars become a textural backdrop rather than a solo vehicle). The first side alone (first 4 tracks for you CD newbies) are the best song arrangements ever and a great display of both Partridge and Moulding in the height of song writing creativity.

As Partridge actually get's better as a song writer, the band sinks. His lyrics were more awkward back then but the energy of the band and the off-kilter but in the pocket rhythms pulled them through. Meanwhile Colin starts to lose his smoothness and writes less and less after this album and he no longer plays bass in the same surreal way. He gets more like McCartney and less like the totally undescribable original that he was. This will be the last time XTC will explore rhythm as the central aspect of their band.

This is XTC's only full excursion into the level of rhythmic and textural complexity mixed with good song writing that they hinted at in Black Sea and Drums and Wires. It is interesting that the best songs in later lamer albums like Oranges and Lemons are jut bad rewrites of early classics like Yacht Dance and Ten Feet Tall.

The best album NOT in your collection.
This is the seminal XTC album: the one that came after Andy Partridge got an acoustic guitar but before he had his nervous breakdown. It's a truly amazing piece of work that belongs in the collection of anyone who likes any kind of rock music.

Songs range from mellow and pensive ("All Of A Sudden (It's Too Late)") to kick-out-the-stops, rock the house ("No Thugs In Our House"), from pure pop mastery ("Senses Working Overtime") to a melding of worldwide influences ("It's Nearly Africa," "English Roundabout").

"Snowman" will have you crying in your beer, cursing that woman that we've all known and tried to love.

Buy it. Buy it now.