THE XENON CODEX (1988)

FINALLY!! We get to hear the zippy Brock/Bainbridge/Langton/Davey/Thompson line-up without the fantasy dreck. It's worth the wait.

"The War I Survived" is high octane crude BLANGA and sets the stage for a consistent, heavy, lyrically tolerable slab. Bainbridge's synthidoodles are better here than on any of the other disks he keyed for, and Thompson sounds like he's been all-you-can-eat brunching throughout his Hawktime: HUGE!

Boy, this sure is a great album and sure is an auspicious beginning for a new, stable, era of BLANGA (we thought, we hoped, we wished) and so, of course, ka-BLOOIE!! Thompson: GONE! (replaced by much lighter sounding skin-man Richard Chadwick).

Shortly thereafter, Langton: GONE!(kinda replaced by the return of prodigal House.)

Shortly thereafter, a new front-person/singer: Bridgett Wishart.

Ah well... I enjoyed XENON anyway.

BLANGA SCORE: 7