After twenty-odd albums, either you follow the Kinks or you don't ("Gently pity those you can't persuade," as Jonathan Swift put it), it's unlikely you'll acquire the habit with Misfits, especially since none of the songs sounds like an immediate hit single. But if you do, this LP can make you cry. Not because Misfits is a bad record -- on the contrary, it's the Kinks' best since, at the very least, 1974's underrated Preservation Act 2. No, what makes it heart-rending is its candor bordering on cruelty. And both the victim and the victor are Ray Davies.

It's as if the voice that has probably whispered for years inside Ray Davies' head, murmuring, "Come out, come out, wherever you are," has swollen into a scream that can no longer be stifled. No more hide-and-seek with the dramatis personae of the theatrical RCA albums or the metaphor of the last LP, Sleepwalker, the Kinks' first for Arista. No more peekaboo behind cute ambiguity ("...I'm glad I'm a man/And so is Lola") or the disingenuousness exhibitionism of drunkenness. Out of the closet, out of the Kinks even, and into the fire -- not of damnation but, what's mor excruciating, of irresolution. For sometimes, coming out isn't as difficult as it's cracked up to be: discovering where you are is often the hard part. That's why Davies, rather than answering the scream in kind, responds with a sigh that is desolating but that also speaks of a peace -- a sadder but wiser awareness of his own ambivalence -- that passeth all understanding.

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You had your chance in your day

Yet you threw it all away

But you know what they say

Every dog has his day.

That "dog," which Davies drops almost casually, without bitterness or self-pity, is devastating. Apart from Johnny Rotten, the only other rock performers capable of such a brutal self-assessment are Pete Townshend and perhaps Neil Young. "Misfits" shows up a song like Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty" for the callow self-romanticization it really is.

Quoted in snatches, the lyrics of these two songs make them sound lacerating, but actually they're extraordinarily tender. Ray Davies sings them gently, almost conversationally, as if the last thing he wanted to do were to melodramatize his dilemma. Indeed, Misfits may be his best-sung -- and must subtly sung -- record yet. "Misfits" and "A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" are arranged as understated anthems; each begins on a delicate, confessional note and builds, layer upon layer, to a chaste grandeur that never topples over into pretentiousness. With Andy Pyle replacing John Dalton on bass, the Kinks play immaculately. This is rock & roll with a bittersweet restraint.

Only "Trust Your Heart," the first song kid-brother-cum-lead-guitarist Dave Davies has written and recorded in six years, erupts uncontrollably, and the chaos is scarifying. As the track lurches from a love song to a political jeremiad ("What on earth do we need government for?"), guitars whine and wallop in a dark void. Dave squeals and caterwauls like Little Richard until on the last verse, his hysteria becomes incomprehensible without the lyrics sheet. Unlike Ray, he cannot articulate his torment, which makes it all the more violent. How can you trust your heart when it's incoherent?

Letting it all hang out as the brothers Davies do on Misfits has its limitations. The straightforward "Out of the Wardrobe," a prosaic ode to transvestism, misses the dodgy wit of "Lola." Though "Black Messiah" rightly ridicules the naive enthusiasm of white audiences for the Rastafarianism of reggae (which it travesties musically by adulterating it with Dixieland), the song raises without resolving the issue of Davies' own racism. And "Get Up" is saved from unseemly condescension ("Here's a message for the little guy") only by the excitement of its beat and because it becomes obvious that the exhortation is aimed, above all, at the singer himself.

Thanks to Ray Davies, Misfits is very nearly a masterpiece because it anatomizes rather than glorifies Davies' role as "One of the Survivors," as the Kinks sang five years ago. After all, merely to have survived is noting to crow about: Al Martino is hanging in there, too, and for all we know, Martin Bormann is alive and well and living in Argentina. For an artist (and anyone else), the point is not only to survive, but to flourish. The Kinks aren't getting any older -- they're getting better.

- Ken Emerson, Rolling Stone, 7/13/78.

Bonus Reviews!

Let's hear it for adult rock. This is not a great Kinks album, but it is solid enough to suggest what this country needs is more rock made by people who, in Ray Davies' words, "...don't want to live in a rock 'n' roll fantasy." Misfits is relatively free of the usual frills on a Kinks album (the sleazy horn section is gone), and it touches on various Ray Davies themes with a song about a transvestite (again) and some new stuff about politics that is almost apolitical (compared with some of Davies' old stuff on the subject). The band rocks a little slicker than it once did, but it still finds spontaneity now and then and still toys with nuance more than most rock bands were ever able to. At times I'm bothered by not being about to figure out what drives Davis, as the voice of the Kinks, nowadays -- but at other times that doesn't bother me a bit.

- Noel Coppage, Stereo Review, 8/78.

The Kinks have been churning out satirical rock for more than a decade, and chief songwriter and frontman Davies seems to improve with age, his acerbic wit and choice of topic as right for the season as ever. The music, supplied by the basic Kinks quintet with the help of a synthesizer, is straight-ahead rock that ably punctuates the incisive lyrics. The years have improved Davies' voice and worn the rough edges off the Kinks' earthy, utilitarian instrumentation. A very palatable package of 10 typically Kinky cuts. Best cuts: "Live Life," "A Rock'n'Roll Fantasy," "Black Messiah," "Misfits," "Permanent Waves."

- Billboard, 1978.

Ray Davies hasn't put so many hummable melodies in one place since Everybody's in Showbiz (just to make sure, he's put a couple of them in both places), and the lyrics evince renewed thought and craft. All of which makes his congenital parochialism and ressentiment surprisingly fresh and vivid. Dismaying: "Black Messiah" -- Enoch Powell would be proud. B

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

A slight improvement over Sleepwalker, Misfits boasted their first Top 40 hit in eight years, "A Rock'n'Roll Fantasy." * * *

- Rick Clark, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

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