Another lavish, gatefold 2-CD re-issue from the PETE TOWNSHEND solo career years, this time it’s the much- maligned ‘Psychoderelict’ in line for the digital re-mastering treatment.
This writer recalls this typically ambitious project (it’s never simply an ‘album’ with Pete, is it?) being on the receiving end of the critical equivalent of a public stoning on its’ original release circa 1993, but – while it’s hardly up there with ‘Oo classics like ‘Quadrophenia’ and ‘Who’s Next?’ – it’s certainly considerably better than its’ reputation as a terminal turkey would have you believe.
Originally conceived as a stage play, the plot surrounding ‘Psychoderelict’ appears to centre around the apparently washed-up, boozed-out rock star Ray High (who can this possibly be based on, readers?) who has become a semi-recluse with burgeoning ecological concerns uppermost in his world. If you want to discover what happens in the sort-of fall-and-rise story of rock’n’roll shenanigans (and it sounds quite intriguing to be fair) then try CD1 first as this features liberal snatches of aural script as well as tunes, but –like I did initially – you could just as easily skip straight to CD2 which features simply the songs from the play and (as I hear it) you probably don’t really need to understand the background to enjoy these for what they are: decent songs with plenty of typically idiosyncratic Townshend twists to their name(s).
OK, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s nothing with the firebrand power of The Who in full flight here (although the robust likes of the defiant ‘English Boys’ and the strident ‘I Want That Thing’ are hardly slouches), but with a band comprising players such as Ian Broudie, long-term Who keyboard sessioneer John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick and Big Country drummer Mark Brzezicki, Townshend compiled sympathetic sonic troops around him and together they made a textured and frequently resonant album which gets some way in realising Pete’s lofty ideals.
Sure, not all the criticism was/is invalid. In the cold light of the early 21st Century, it’s hard to forgive ‘I Am Afraid’ for sounding like Sting; too many of the keyboard sounds and big, gated drums sound like they’re being laid down seven or eight years too late and there’s absolutely no excuse for the big-permed, girlie stadium ballad ‘Flame’. I mean, even in Pete Townshend’s hands, it sounds like a T’Pau out-take and we can’t even have something like that sneaking in through the back door when no-one’s looking. There again, a closer look at the credits reveals this is the one group-written effort here, so perhaps Pete realised democracy couldn’t be tolerated after this one aberration.
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Fortunately, there’s enough here to turn it around, form-wise. The aforementioned brawlers ‘English Boys’ and ‘I Want That Thing’ are anthemic enough to grab you by the lapels early on and the chase-cutting ‘Don’t Try To Make Me Real’ also shoves its’ foot in the door in purposeful fashion, even if the lyric relating to “make me of pornography in a paedophile wheel” sits a little uneasily after the unfortunate kiddie porn charges unfairly levelled at Townshend in recent times.
Elsewhere, our hero indulges in a nicely pointed commentary on the “rock star” attempting to outlive his overblown past in the knowing ‘Outlive The Dinosaur’ (lines like “battle-scarred/ a relic deaf to bits and streams/ and polo necks and perfect dreams” are surely autobiographical), while his always-appealing vulnerable side is spotlighted beautifully on tunes like ‘Now And Then’: a contrite and rueful love song (“But I am helpless in this pantomime/ I am aware that I was wrong”) which sounds every bit as open and honest as the excellent ‘I Like It The Way It Is’ from the recently re-issued ‘Scoop 3’ set.
OK, it’s a little uneven and also probably too full of linking tracks like the continuing ‘Meher Baba’ series of instrumentals (though the ‘Who Are You’-esque ‘Meher Baba M4 (Signal Box)’ is pretty cool), so some cherry-picking is required – not least when you discover that the entirety of CD2 clocks in at a generous 79 minutes. Nonetheless, for all Pete Townshend’s high-brow artistic concerns, ‘Psychoderelict’ deserves a decent critical renovation job rather than the notices of condemnation it was served the first time around.
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