Anton Barbeau, The Bevis Frond - King of Missouri (2003)

Sacramento cult hero Anton Barbeau teams up with legendary UK psych rockers the Bevis Frond for the best rock and roll guitar pop album this year. American version has bonus track plus it has been completely redesigned and remastered with liner notes from. Bongo Beat. 2004.

As a prime exponent of melodic power pop, the Sacramento singer-songwriter Anton Barbeau has XTC's Andy Partridge somewhere near the top of his influences list. Now Partridge himself is a fan of Barbeau's eloquently crafted music. The brilliant title track of his seventh album is just about as good as the genre can get, with a driving riff, 1960s vocal harmonies and appropriately bittersweet lyrics... King of Missouri was recorded in Bromley, of all places, with the help of Walthamstow's veteran psychedelic rockers the Bevis Frond, who embolden Barbeau's singer-songwriter tendencies with a crisp, vibrant backing. On "I Don't Like You" they prove the perfect pairing, sounding like Bob Dylan fronting some great lost British freak-beat band. --THE SUNDAY TIMES, London, UK

Barbeau's cracking (in both senses of the word) voice rasping over Saloman's crystalline guitars like a blessed alliance between The Soft Boys, Cake and XTC, all of whom hold Barbeau in high esteem. Despite the easy tag, Barbeau peddles neither pop nor psychedelia, it's power that's the important word. Though they're completely unrelated references, think of Julian Cope's sprawling Krautrock and Zappa's ironic everything as touchstones for how outsider music can get inside you and change the way you think, feel and hear. Barbeau deserves a place alongside them. --Alan Downes, LOGO Magazine, UK