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Fifty-five is hardly old age, but it would appear old enough to get Robyn Hitchcock thinking about a few things.

Goodnight Oslo, the beloved British acid-folkie’s second album with the Venus 3 – guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Scott McCaughey and drummer Bill Rieflin, all poached from the extended R.E.M. family – is rife with allusions to death, time passing and the wilder nights of Hitchcock’s youth. He’s said the creepy title track was inspired by a speed-fuelled romp in Norway many years ago with his old Soft Boys bandmate Morris Windsor (who guests here, along with the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy and Harvey Danger’s Sean Nelson).

"Saturday Groovers" relishes in smelling "the smoke from the lungs of the Saturday groovers" with jubilant, T. Rex-like swagger, then situates the reminiscence in a present fraught with "heart disease and gout." "16 Years" turns a cold eye upon "16 years when all I got was high." The lingering "Your Head Here," meanwhile, could be staring down into a friend’s casket and confronting the inevitable: "Life is all I own / You walk a thousand miles and you’re alone."

Goodnight Oslo balances mirth and macabre in customary fashion, offering a woozy love song in "TLC" (for Triptisol, Librium and Carbatrol) to the three drugs that make a partner bearable, and a dissection of human romance on "Intricate Thing" packed with cryptic ponderings like: "You’re not just friends / You’re not just bodies by the window / Bodies in the lounge / Bodies by the small settee." Yet another strong entry in a cluttered, 30-year catalogue.

Source: The Star.ca