THE ROAD TO UTOPIAN

Ian McNabb has been revisiting his past of late. Namely the first flush of The Icicle Works, the dashing alt.rock trio he co-founded in Liverpool in 1980. “When I listen back, I’m impressed by how musical and how technical it sounds,” he marvels. “There weren’t too many bands from that era who were as proficient; they couldn’t play Won’t Get Fooled Again from beginning to end, but we could. We’d often play the whole of The Who’s Live At Leeds note-perfect. I always thought we were more prog than new wave.”

Just as The Icicle Works never quite slotted into any comfortable genre, the same applies to McNabb the solo artist. Since winding up the band in 1990, the maverick adventurer has released more than a dozen studio albums that encompass pop, prog, psychedelia, folk and clamorous guitar rock, linked by a gift for a great melody. It’s an eclecticism mirrored in the associations