Both Fried’s title and its cover — featuring the former Teardrop Explodes leader crouched on the floor naked save for a giant tortoise shell on his back — suggests Julian Cope’s second solo album might be a work of acid-cracked fragility akin to Syd Barrett’s solo work or Skip Spence’s Oar. However, while Cope’s eccentricities are present and correct (see the surreal spoken word break on Echo & The Bunnymen-like opener “Reynard The Fox”), it’s the work of an artist very much ‘with it’. One only need listen to the gorgeous “Bill Drummond Said” or the loopy genius of “Sunspots” to realise Cope was still perfectly in control of his faculties when it came to delivering deft melodic pop songs. On “Laughing Boy,” meanwhile, he showed himself to the keeper of the flame for the delicate, peculiarly English psychedelia Barrett had minted before himself crumbling.