Over the past two decades, "Underwater Moonlight" has taken the back door route to cult stardom, mostly via American campus radio and - significantly - REM's patronage. Peter Buck and Michael Stipe have repeatedly sung its' praises and later turned up on Robyn Hitchcock's 1991 LP,"Perspex Island", while continued support from the US underground has recently led to the ever-discerning Matador re-releasing the original album on CD with nine different out-takes (including their take of SYD BARRETT's "Vegetable Man" - wahey!) from the 1980 sessions.
However, "Underwater Moonlight"s classic status has been hard won in the UK. Like so many combos from the late 70s, THE SOFT BOYS rose from the ashes of a local punk outfit - in our Cambridge heroes' case DENNIS & THE EXPERTS - only to spend the next three years honing in on excellence. There are signposts en route, though, not least the band's under-rated debut album,"A Can Of Bees" (1979), whose finest moments - "Leppo & The Jooves" and the immortal "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out" - point to something wicked waiting in the wings.
Despite being dropped by Radar Records prior to "...Bees"' release, THE SOFT BOYS decision to go it alone and decamp to their Cambridge boathouse rehearsal room gave them twelve month to avoid falling oars and sculling teams and hone the 10 songs (and more besides) that would make up "Underwater Moonlight." Although resolutely lo-fi, the bonus disc is a valuable addition now, as it catches songs like "Insanely Jealous" and "Old Pervert" already approaching greatness as the band wrestle with their shapes.
Eventually produced by ex-VIBRATOR Pat Collier, "Underwater Moonlight" really is a beauty to behold; a veritable melange of superior new wave pop nous laced with the occasional Beefheartian wibble like the frazzled "Old Pervert" and its' vicious bucking bronco riff to keep the pulse racing.
Lyrically,"UNDERWATER MOONLIGHT" is grotesquely fascinating. Hitchcock mostly explores the darker side of gender roles and men don't usually come out of these sexual tussles too favourably, particularly on tracks like the self-explanatory (if playful) "Old Pervert" or the chilling "Insanely Jealous", which positively seethes with rage as Hitchcock reaches the line : "and when they embrace, all I hear is the kiss of skulls." Nasty indeed. Rather more surreal, yet no less queasy is "I Got The Hots", a bruised blues which really does mention a curry talking to a corpse! Groo!
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All of which is flabbergasting when allied to tunes shaving heaven's eyebrows. With its' fabbo Beach Boys harmonies, anti-media message and noo wave crunch,"I Wanna Destroy You" is maybe 1980's greatest lost three minutes. "Kingdom Of Love", meanwhile, shows explicitly why Kimberley Rew was Cambridge's most respected guitar gun for hire at the time and "Positive Vibrations" is a sun-kissed glory that even dares lob in a sitar without cringing. And rightly so.
"The Queen Of Eyes" is still the one that gets Robyn Hitchcock all those Byrds comparisons, but it's a blissful ride into the sunset in its' own right and it sets the scene nicely for the brilliantly bizarre title track where a couple (I think) give themselves up to the ocean's love for all eternity. That probably gives you the shivers, but allied to a sublime blowout of a chorus and superb contributions from the whole band it swings majestically into oblivion.
Sadly, not even an extensive UK tour and lengthy visit to New York post Lp release could raise THE SOFT BOYS profile at the time and they quietly fizzled out early in 1981. Robyn Hitchcock has continued on a great, idiosyncratic solo career ever since, later hooking up with drummer Morris Windsor and original SOFT BOYS bassist Andy Metcalfe as THE EGYPTIANS, carrying on the SOFT BOYS tradition, before finally reforming the band for re-union shows during 2001.
Whatever he does next, though (and it's always diverting at very least),it will always be "Underwater Moonlight" that forged his credentials as a prime purveyor of fantastic psychedelic pop. As touchstones of excellence go, there are few others that continue to shine so incandescently.
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