Julian Cope – St Julian – Deluxe Edition (Island Records)

When we see old photographs of ourselves, the natural reaction is to cringe and self-congratulate on how you’ve moved on and progressed as a person. When Julian Cope looks back at this re-issue of his third solo release, 1986’s ‘St Julian’, he surely cringes first, then bristles with pride.

Now an expert in krautrock, everyone’s favourite arch-druid was a very different person back in the 80’s. After several albums of glorious weirdness fronting Teardrop Explodes, St Julian is the product of his new record label (Island) pushing him into a direction he probably didn’t want to go in but embraced his inner rock god, pulled on the leather trousers and recorded what is still the most polished and commercial album. Musically, better was to come, ‘Peggy Suicide’ is a master-stroke; ‘St Julian’ is more a work in progress.

The production sheen hasn’t aged well in parts but there’s no stopping the now indie disco classic ‘World Shut Your Mouth’ and opener ‘Trampoline’, throw away pop at the time, these tracks now sound like a mid-80s radio friendly albeit over-produced classics.

More focussed than any of the material he was involved in prior to this, Cope showed he was capable of many different guises, ‘‘Eve’s Volcano’ is throw-away pop,‘Planet Ride’s insistent rock riffs and the smell of lived in leather was something that INXS perfected just a year later on their all-conquering ‘Kick’ album, ‘Pulsar’ has a delicious Iggy-like sneer and the centre-piece of the album, the eight minute ‘Crack in the Clouds’ is psychedelic and beautiful. 7.3/10
Chris Todd