ALWAYS UNLIKELY TO RETURN FROM ANY WILDERNESS YEARS WITH STATELINESS ANYTHING LIKE THAT OF DAVID BOWIE’S RECENT COMEBACK, ON HIS NEW ALBUM (HIS FIRST IN ALMOST TWO DECADES), AND IN HIS OWN LESS POETICALLY OBLIQUE WAY, ADAM ANT GIVES EQUAL ACCOUNT OF HIS CURRENT WHEREABOUTS. 
It’s interesting to note that Ant similarly seems to have looked back across his legacy but gone for the (being) difficult option. On this, the ninth bona fide Ant album, personal insights are surrounded by a musically clattering and occasionally unfocused revisit to pre-white stripe days.
Rather than the anticipated nostalgic reboot of familiar tropes – KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER-era stagey piratetechnics, signature Burundi double drum intensity and 1950s-flecked guitar twang (though single COOL ZOMBIE seems to have done its yo-ho-homework, coming closest to tipping a braided tricorne in the direction of that aesthetic) – here Ant chooses to revisit the low-fi rawness and occasionally out of control overexcitement of a slew of late 1970s (pre-DIRK WEARS WHITESØX) demos which found release as scratchy curios on the retrospective ANTBOX collection in 2000. 
ADAM ANT IS THE BLUEBLACK HUSSAR IN MARRYING THE GUNNER’S DAUGHTER not only draws pistols with Fiona Apple for the honour of being most unwieldy album title of all time, it also details a scattergun creative mind in a state of constant shift. It’s a rum do. Parts of it set sail, parts of it stay docked. On both counts it’s not always the bits you wish. The absence of supreme facilitator and reiner-in Marco Pirroni is, potentially, what’s lacking – the unpredictable flintlock firing of Ant’s imagination suggests a treasure trove of ideas was hauled, but no-one knew quite what was lead and what was for polishing.
Muddily produced STAY IN THE GAME is the sound of a rough garage band having a crack at twisting PHYSICAL (YOU’RE SO) out of sexual-position feasibility and, true to early ’80s (m)antra “sexmusic for antpeople”, carnality is high on the agenda throughout.
Acoustic blank-punk throb SAUSAGE is sandwiched between two drum machine workouts of differing intensity; PUNKYOUNGIRL sees the familiar Ant fetish for kitschy leather-clad allure almost ripped apart by the trashy “… lift up your skirt and let me lick the alphabet”, while soul pastiche DIRTY BEAST somehow manages the bizarre feat of imploring “… treat me like the dirty beast I am” and having it sound quite sweet. It also hints at depressive Motown star Marvin Gaye’s struggles – a theme which rears up again on VINCE TAYLOR, a dramatic warning of the perils of post-fame which references the decline of The Playboys frontman.
The album almost plays like an exercise in clearing the (demo tape) decks. Seventeen years is a long time to wait to make your next artistic statement, so in some way it’s understandable to find so much tumbling out at once, like an excitable friend playing six seconds each of sixteen records in a breathless first few minutes of a visit. In another, there are just so many ideas and experiments of differing quality, some in far sharper focus than others, that confusing mixed messages and occasional frustrations abound.
In his heyday, Ant’s major talent was the knack for fashioning up a comprehensible, exciting and attractively commercial package from his keen ideas and disparate influences. It’s absolutely never less than pleasing that he’s back from his personal brink, but the lack of singular concept or vision – and judicious pruning – means this album is unlikely to be what cannons him to the centre of the star board. It’s debatable whether he’s looking for that anyway as – admirably – ADAM ANT IS THE BLUEBLACK HUSSAR IN MARRYING THE GUNNER’S DAUGHTER seems wilfully not the Adam Ant the majority will have been expecting to hear from. Next time, who knows?