Robyn Hitchcock: Jewels For Sophia : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Robyn Hitchcock has made some of the best Brit pop of the last twenty years, but Oasis fans will never know, because his songs are filled with images of death, decay and the devil - not to mention light-bulb heads, mutant reptiles and oozing insects. Lately, this quintessential cult star has begun toning down some of his macabre imagery, but it turns out he's been singing about love all along - even if he sometimes still fantasizes about making it with "Antwoman" and "her Audrey Hepburn feelers." On Jewels for Sophia, he rocks more fervently than he has on any solo release since the early Eighties. Former Soft Boys sidekick Kimberly Rew contributes an appropriately rabid slide-guitar solo to "NASA Clapping." "Elizabeth Jade" and "Viva! Sea-Tac" corner a bunch of garage-rock cliches and knock them silly. As with the stellar Moss Elixir (1996), Hitchcock proves that he doesn't need audacious wordplay to write a memorable song. "Dark Princess" and "You've Got a Sweet Mouth on You, Baby" swoon without so much as a smirk. It's the sound of Hitchcock mastering a new emotional language: sincerity. (RS 820)

GREG KOT