Robyn Hitchcock - Black Snake Diamond Röle FLAC

I don't know which is more surprising: that Robyn Hitchcock's been drawing from the same peculiar well, or that he still manages to make the same water feel fresh every time. Whichever it is, Hitchcock's own brand of Barrett-meets-Dylan-in-an-underwater-hotel music sounds roughly the same on one of his newer albums (e.g., Spooked) as it does here.
Certainly, a little bit of the strangeness has gone out of his creative life, but he hasn't gotten stale. It's just been a long time since he would assault us with such weird fun as the choogling travelogue 'Brenda's Iron Sledge' or the falsetto(ish) nightmare of 'Do Policemen Sing?' What he's held onto is the gorgeous sweetness of 'City of Shame' and the blatantly poppity joy of 'The Man Who Invented Himself.' Anyone who's heard Hitchcock's output at any time in his career is likely to be satisfied here, though. We're given a pleasant sampling of what to expect from him for the nearly-30 years since this album, and a taste of what it is that keeps him so very fresh after all that time has passed.