***1/2 XTC

APPLE VENUS VOL. 1

(TVT)

This lovely album is pretty much what XTC were planning six years ago before they launched a recording strike to break their old contract. The demos have been circulating for years, but the album actually sounds more at home in 1999: many of last year's notable pop records (the Pernice Brothers, R.E.M's Up, and, for those who liked it, Costello/Bacharach) ditched guitars to explore this kind of orchestral chamber pop. After such an extended break, you want XTC to do more than write catchy little pop songs: you want them to get you teary and haunt you for days. They accomplish that on the new "The Last Balloon," which is among the saddest and prettiest things Andy Partridge has written. Sort of a "Yellow Submarine" in reverse, it invites his children to escape the world that his generation messed up, then drifts off into the ether with an evocative trumpet solo.

The rest of Apple Venus is considerably more upbeat, with "Easter Theatre" and "River of Orchids" returning to the rustic Brit-folk territory of Skylarking, and "I'd Like That" working sexual urges into a nice love song. Bassist Colin Moulding's two dry-witted numbers are the ice to Partridge's fire (ousted guitarist Dave Gregory, who appears throughout, was evidently the lukewarm water). The token nasty number, "Your Dictionary" (about Partridge's divorce), marks his first use of the f-word, but the mood shifts from bitchy to regretful before it's through. "Greenman" features the album's only aggressive lead guitar -- and a few more wouldn't have hurt -- but there are enough soaring hooks and pop shivers to place this with XTC's best.

-- Brett Milano