The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 O'Clock

All Music Guide

Pointedly released on April Fool's Day 1985 and trumpeted in ads as the first release of newly-unearthed vintage recordings by a classic Carnaby Street-era psych-pop band, 25 O'Clock was, of course, actually recorded by XTC (augmented with guitarist Dave Gregory's brother Ian on drums) and producer John Leckie, paying loving though tongue in cheek homage to the period that initially inspired them. (It was probably a rather bitter irony that this EP actually outsold either of the two most recent XTC albums, Mummer and The Big Express.) The Dukes of Stratosphear project was rather more than a joke, though; Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, and Gregory genuinely loved British psychedelia, and, in many ways, this was their version of the Beatles' aborted Get Back project. The Dukes of Stratosphear was, for one thing, XTC's original name, and Moulding's pseudonym, the Red Curtain, was derived from "Curtains," his band nickname in the early days, thanks to his then waist-length hair. The songs... are equally reminiscent of the band's early musical loves, with deliberate lifts from the Beatles, the Move, the Kinks, the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, and others. Happily, most of the six tracks also work on their merits, not just as pastiche; "Bike Ride to the Moon" isn't just a takeoff of Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle," it's a delirious freakout more propulsive than anything XTC had recorded since 1980's Black Sea. The other five tracks are equally excellent, with the title track and "Your Gold Dress" particular standouts. The funniest moment, however, comes at the end of side one, when Leckie fades in a tape recording of a caller (who sounds like, but isn't, Woody Allen) to a New York radio broadcast complaining about the show's earlier broadcast of ex-Fug Tuli Kupferberg's "Go Fuck Yourself With Your Atom Bomb." That sort of sly humor enlivens all of the album, helping make it one of XTC's best releases under any name. - Stewart Mason, All Music Guide Read more Less