XTC’s Black Sea has been lovingly remixed by producer Steven Wilson.

The album was originally released in a punk landscape featuring its finely tooled baroque n’ roll aspirations. It was resplendent in it’s latter day Beatles panache. Black Sea’s meticulous arrangements coupled with Partridge and Mouldings lyrical invention was pop perfection in the truest form.

XTC have sustained their clever inventiveness with eloquent ease throughout their careers.

The remixed album opens with a clarion riff on Respectable Street. It is followed by the irresistible woahs of Living Through Another Cuba and the tribute to the Never Never Navvies of the superb Towers of London.

This album is a stone cold classic and Steven Wilson has not taken away any of the original beauty. There are no unwelcome surprises but there is an added crispness. There is clarity and there is positioning.

The all important second disc offers both Steve O mixes, surround sound mixes, videos, instrumentals and demos. All in all, Black Sea has been lovingly produced keeping its beauty intact. This is a definitive edition of an XTC album you will undervalue at your peril. - Ian Millar