XTC - "Apple Venus Vol.1"

Now and then, I use this blog to write a few lines about albums that I love and that no one else seems to care much about. XTC's comeback album "Apple Venus Vol.1" was released in 1999 at the very end of the Britpop boom when Oasis, Blur and all were beginning to fall from grace. I don't think it sold very well. I didn't see any videos from it and its release was not followed by a tour due to Andy Partridge longstanding reluctance to perform live. I don't recall seeing it in any of the year's annual polls, certainly not in top positions. But it is a great record.
XTC are the unsung heroes of British pop. They have made brilliant and distinctively English pop records which have influenced many bands (namely Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads) but somehow they never got the credit they deserved. And Andy Partridge is a great songwriter who seems determined to write all the great songs we expected Paul McCartney to write after the end of the Beatles but couldn't manage to. "Venus" is full of great compositions that owe, without losing in comparision, to both the Beatles and Brian Wilson. Songs with great melodies and a wide scope, adorned with lush string arrangements and full of vivid musical details. It is also a homage that Partridge (and his longtstanding music partner Colin Moulding who pens two songs) pay to rural England with lyrics which evoke its languid landscapes and with pagan references to nature - just check the awesome "Greenman". There is a pastoral feel to the whole album that is only left aside on "Your Dictionary", a bitter letter from Partridge to a former lover.
All in all a near-perfect album which needs to be reappreciated.