Robyn Hitchcock has such a reputation for being a weirdo on record that it's startling when he offers a moment of heartfelt clarity. You get a few of these on Olé! Tarantula, scattered about the familiar rubble of bugs, libido, and geometry. Like the reminder that "There's nothing wrong with failure/ Everybody does it" in "The Authority Box", or the assertion that "Music is the antidote to a world of pain and sorrow" on "Museum of Sex". Listening to this record you get the feeling that Hitchcock believes that second one to his very soul.
Olé! Tarantula doesn't even think about breaking new ground, but it does present Hitchcock as a guy comfortable with his strangeness. The surrealism feels as natural as it ever did with the Soft Boys or in his Fegmania!/Element of Light heyday. But instead of the urgency of those old records, here we get assured confidence. In a time when everybody seems to be making a credible comeback, it would be easy for a guy like Hitchcock to overreach; instead, he balances the bizarrely profane ("Fuck me, baby/ I'm a trolley bus") and the reverent, as on the touching ode to late New York Dolls bassist Arthur Kane that closes the album.
Part of this confidence might stem from the backing band. Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck, and Bill Rieflin are the Venus 3, and their name seems to be an oblique reference to the Minus 5, of which all three are members. Having these guys behind him gives Hitchcock plenty of room to move, and the result is a loose, eclectic album. The record opens with a blast of stomping rock on "Adventure Rocket Ship", which casts the Venus 3 as a junior Soft Boys, nods to "Arnold Layne", proudly brandishes the word "hermaphrodite," and generally gets things off to a smashing start. (Actual Soft Boy Morris Windsor is on many of these songs helping McCaughey with the backing harmonies.)
"Belltown Ramble", with McCaughey's piano wandering over Rieflin's muted drums, feels similar to the first section of Pink Floyd's "Pow R Toc H". Hitchcock gets into this musical environment and relates a stroll through one's hometown that happens to include encounters with Tamerlane and an Uzbek warlord. While its title promises a nightmare freakout, "Red Locust Frenzy" is even gentler, and the verses about holding off demons aren't as literal as Hitchcock might otherwise make them.
The surreal approach doesn't work across the board. The title track, for instance, contains plenty of deliciously disturbing imagery of tarantulas gathering underground between peels of harmonica, but it also finds Hitchcock getting too weird for his own good. "I feel like a three-legged chinchilla," he sings, a feeling I doubt anyone can identify with, three-legged chinchillas aside. Still, his knack for making the odd not just palatable for a broad audience but downright meaningful is sharper than ever. Olé! Tarantula isn't his best solo record, but it's in the top tier, and after all these years that's certainly something.
