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Since Andy Partridge and company removed themselves from the touring circuit by this time, they took full advantage of the fact that their forthcoming career would be based on their studio expertise. Moving from giddy new wave to a more progressive pop sound with their prior album English Settlement, XTC announced to the world that every subsequent album was going to go the way of Sgt. Pepper. That may be a bit of a reach, but Mummer is still something to behold.

For one thing, the psychadelic tendencies that the band were keeping at bay in previous releases comes into full bloom this time around with Human Alchemy and Colin Moulding's Deliver Us From The Elements. Each song gives the ears an aesthetic that wrestles with near horror. The combination is spellbinding to say the least.

Love On A Farmboy's Wages finds Partridge singing "the only job I do well is here on the farm/and it's breaking my back," perhaps telling his fans what has become his current state of mind with his nervous breakdown. But the music is as close to the English countryside as your going to get on a pop record out of the eighties. Dave Gregory's acoustic guitar tickles the landscape as Partridge rhetorically asks "how can we feed love on a farmboy's wages?"

Ladybird, Me and the Wind, In Loving Memory of a Name (Moulding's tribute to an unknown soldier), and Great Fire are more songs that insist on painting itself onto a great big canvas. Their melodies and dynamics reach higher and crash harder than anything from English Settlement or prior. And most memorable of all is Beating of Hearts, Partridge's hippy anthem:

"Louder than thoughts of dictators
Louder than rattling swords
Louder than loading of rifles
Louder than screaming warlords
Louder than tanks on the highway
Louder than bombers in flight
Louder than noises of hatred
Dancing us from darkest night is the rhythm of love
Powered on the the beating of hearts"

Funk Pop a Roll wraps up the album with a very cynical attack on the music industry. Sounding more like Drums and Wires than anything else on Mummer, Andy Partridge gives us all a lesson in self pity:

"Funk pop a roll the only goal
The music business is a hammer to keep
You pegs in your holes
But please don't listen to me
I've already been poisoned by this industry!
Funk pop a roll beats up my soul"

In my opinion, this is the weakest track on Mummer. Yet it always ends up on the best of compilations. Go figure.

Some unexpected joy can also be found in Mummer's bonus tracks. An additional 6 songs help bolster the album's length by a third. Not only that, but the songs are all quite good, especially the uppity Jump and the Beatlesque Gold.

Although this is not XTC's finest moment, it is still one of their best albums overall. It's failure is not really a surprise since this is the type of pop music that requires time and patience. But Mummer has lots of rewards buried underneath it. It is one of XTC's most peaceful and experimental efforts, and we are all the better for it.


A box of mixed nuts   December 19, 1998
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Almost every XTC album puts the rest of the pop world to shame. While this one has at least two great tracks, MUMMER is their most ambitious, but least sucessful album. Clearly a transitional record, the band attempted to stretch beyond the conceits of new wave by creating(for then)a number of daring new sounds.

The problem wasn't with the ambition, or the sounds, but the songwriting. Andy Partridge delivers two great songs; one reflecting the pastoral theme that crops up throughout the album, "Love on a farm boy's wages" and the other, "Funk pop a roll"(essentially a rewrite of Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio")that brims with fire, brimstone and acidic wit.These two tracks bookend some of the least interesting tracks the band has recorded. "Beating of hearts", the opening track, has merit as well, but, again, the concept is better than the execution.To give the album its due, though, there is always something interesting to listen to, but usually the songs don't amount to much beyond the "sound". MUMMER shares many of the flaws that crop up in McCartney's middle solo years--tuneful, melodic pop without direction, or purpose.

Andy, Colin and Dave would do much better with the focused, tuneful THE BIG EXPRESS which followed this album in 1984 and would continue after that to produce a series of exceptional albums that would redefine the rock/pop world. That is if everyone would just listen.


Incredibly Bold   August 17, 2002
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is when I became a certified fan of XTC. They effectively stuck thier nose up at the music industry and said screw you we are going to do what we want. Since they no longer were touring at this point and English Settlement proved to be an artistic move forward but a commercial move backward you might have expected XTC to deliver a commercial record to lure the masses. Fat chance and thank goodness.This is as bold and brilliant as it gets. Here is the breakdown:

Beating Of Hearts- Middle Eastern Flavored joyous feel good song. Please note that no matter how upbeat the songs on this release, they all seem to have a dark, brooding underbelly.

Wonderland- Pastoral perfect Pop from Colin. Complete with lilting keyboards and soothing bird noises.

Love On A Farmboys Wages- Folky love song from Andy.

GreatFire- Kind of an attempt at Senses Working Overtime Part II. Enough Said.

Deliver Us From The Elements- the whole proceedings are turning dark. The most somber, dark, eerie song Colin has ever written. Kind of spooky.

Human Alchemy- Really spooky. Dark and brooding. Sounds like it should be the theme to a horror movie while Andy rants about the practice of selling slaves to being alchemy.

Ladybird- Cut to an absolute classic love ballad. This song is so atmospheric and pretty. Got to be one of the top XTC songs ever.

In Loving Memory Of A Name- Pastoral English Pop heavy on Drums and Keyboards.

Me and The Wind- Quirky song about breaking up.

Funk Pop A Roll- Let em have it. Andy sticks it to the industry with a XTC style straight forward rocker (the only one here I might add)

Frost Circus- Pointless Instrumental Drivel-Next

Jump- Nice catchy pop tune

Toys- Another catchy little ditty about how playing with Toys relates to us later in life.

Gold- Bold and brassy pop number. The happiest cut among the bunch.

Procession Towards...-See Frost Circus...next

Desert Island- Nice analogy of England being a Desert Island. Perfect Pop.


XTC's mumbles on Mummer   August 27, 2003
 3 out of 6 found this review helpful

The pastoral peaceful quality of the best tracks on Mummer indicated a radial change in direction for the band. Part of that radical change occurred because of Andy Partridge's desire to quit touring; many of their albums benefited from having new material previewed in concert. Partridge only wrote material he felt the quartet could play on stage. While that was limiting, it also helped define the band's sound. After Partridge's severe episode of stagefright sidelined him from completing the English Settlement tour in 1982, he returned to his home and concentrated on the bliss of domestic life. That's reflected in Mummer; there's a gentleness and peacefulness lacking in all of the XTC canon. It's also the album's chief flaw; while much of the material is very good, the band hadn't found their way yet with this new sound. The studio experimentation freed them (much like The Beatles) but it also hemmed them in; the songs lacked the edge that XTC fans had come to expect.

There's plenty of great to good material to make Mummer worthwhile for fans; Love on a Farmboy's Wages with its invigorating, galloping guitar break (courtesy of the underrated Dave Gregory)immediately sets it apart from what Partridge had done before. The closer of the album is at the other extreme; the acidic Funk Pop a Roll mines similar ground as Elvis Costello's Radio Radio but lacks that songs strong resolution. It starts at the top but doesn't have anywhere to go.

In between Moulding provides three marvelous songs with Wonderland and the chaotic Deliver Us from the Elements. Partridge delivers his most sublime song in the form of Ladybird. It's jazz chord changes and unusual melody immediately make it memorable. It's a signpost of things to come on the much maligned but powerful The Big Express. With Me and the Wind Partridge likewise takes an unusually awkward melody and hammers it into shape taking out just enough of the kinks to make it compellingly odd yet distinctively an XTC track. It's not Partridge's most original melody (or idea) but what it lacks in originality, is made up for by Partridge's breathless vocal and the frenized performance of the band.

Sadly with Mummer XTC suffered its second casuality (the first being Barry Andrews after the band's second album and who was more than ably replaced by the brilliant guitarist/keyboardist Dave Gregory); Terry Chambers flew the coop during the recording of the album. He appears on only two tracks and is replaced by a session drummer. It hurts the album as Chamber's powerful, rhythmatic playing was a big part of the band's sound both live and on record. While the band recovered, the loss of Chambers left a much larger gaping hole than most fans are willing to admit. His inspired playing might have breathed life into the more moribound songs on the album.

Mummer is a transtional album for this great English rock band; As Partridge and Moulding became more ambitious composers, they stretched the boundaries of the band's sound. Mummer was their first attempt at doing this and while that stretch may feel uncomfortable at times, it allowed XTC to reach beyond the musical deadend that they might have faced after English Settlement. It's not an album that I come back to alot (save for certain songs) but when I do, it provides a nice change of pace (much like The Big Express) from the band's early and later sounds. They may have been stumbling around in the dark with Mummer but its clear that they knew where the light switch was.


Mummer   January 27, 2004
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This, and three other XTC albums are my must-have, absolutely essential XTC works to own. Because of sheer diversity, focus and songwriting beauty. The other 3 are Black Sea, Oranges and Lemons, and Apple Venus Volume 1.

What is so beautiful about MUMMER is it's distance from other XTC works. And that what becomes the XTc sound here, crops up later in other releases. Mummer and what it does never truly left XTC, and both songwriters (Partridge & Moulding) changed their writing styles on this album and never looked back.

Many here have mentioned the troubled tour of English Settlement, and why XTC withdrew from the public arena, so I guess I'll try and encapsulate what makes this one of my favourite XTC albums . . .

For one, this album sounds pristine, whether its the remastered version, the vinyl or its original CD release. It is one of the best sounding XTC albums they released. Despite the loss of Terry Chambers (though he appears on a few tracks) replacement studio drummer Peter Phipps suits XTC to a T. His drumming, and the engineering on this album truly shine, no more so on 'Ladybird', one of the best songs Partridge has written to date. There is no possible way Chambers could have played 'Ladybird' in its style, and though he's a great drummer and suited XTC pre-Mummer, his loss was somewhat XTC's gain. A fuller pallette of rhythms is explored and used, and each suit every song. Phipps would have been a great replacement for the long haul.

Moulding changes the most on this album. His songwriting style that is present to this day, surfaces on Mummer. By Oranges & Lemons, Moulding was a completely different songwriter, and far better for it. The often maligned 'Wonderland' is the first of his songs to actually employ instrumentation that augments the lyric or tone of the song, and by Oranges & Lemons he became so good at it, that people stopped noticing how great a songwriter he is. Deliver Us From The Elements and In Loving Memory of a Name are probably two of his least known tracks, but by far two of his best, particularly 'In Loving . . . ' What is surprising, is the amount of material Moulding had available for inclusion on this album, that was every bit as good as what made it in the end. Two songs, 'Spare A Penny' and 'The World Is Full of Angry Young Men' should have been included with the CD release. (..Angry Young Men can be found on 'Rag & Bone Buffet', and BOTH versions of 'Spare A Penny' you'll just have to look around for -- its the reggae tinged 'Penny' that I think is such a strong song, but its message is probably what stopped Colin from going ahead with it)

Partridge is by no means a slouch on this album either. Song after song he just produces wonderful pieces of art. That he thought 'Great Fire' was single potential is possibly what stops this band from wider monetary success. It is a great song, but this album really is an 'album's album'. I can't really hear many singles coming from this, though a load were released from it, and videos exist for practically all of the songs (barring 'Me & The Wind', 'Great Fire', and 'Deliver Us From The Elements').

The three man XTC (Gregory / Moulding / Partridge) come off the touring-go-round and produced an incredibly peaceful, yet disturbing work. And I honestly have to give Andy Partridge some much deserved credit. 'Human Alchemy' will always remain for me, a song that just had to be. That a person of 'caucasian race' actually had the nerve and courage to say what he says in this song, will always garner my respect. Kudos Andy. Thank you for saying it, and meaning it. I wish there were more like you.

Again, not the first album for a 'newbie' to buy from XTC. In fact, I can't actually recommend that first album to get by them! You'll just have to take a chance on one of them, and see where it takes you. (If you're obsessive compulsive, please join the queue . . . )