conflicts. Coinciding with Gregory's arrival, in April 1979, the band recorded "Life Begins at the Hop", written by bassist Colin Moulding, and their first record with Lillywhite producing. After the band went on tour for the single, sessions for Drums and Wires resumed from 25 June to July. By this time, Moulding "wanted to ditch [our] quirky nonsense and do more straight-ahead pop." He said that when Andrews was in the band, Partridge had "no kind of foil" to work with, as he "used to like the real kind of angular, spiky, upward-thrusting guitar ... if one is angular, the other has to kind of straighten him out, you know? It was just going too far the other way, I felt. So when Dave came in, and was a much straighter player, it seemed to make more sense, I think." Partridge opined that, before then, Moulding's songs "came out as weird imitations of what I was doing, 'cause he thought that was the thing to do. ... On Go 2 he was sort of getting his own style, and by Drums and Wires he really started to take off as a songwriter." Gregory remembered that XTC's songs "inspired a different approach to listening and playing from that which I'd grown up with. I simply couldn't continue grinding out old blues clichés and power chords, so I began to think more in terms of the songs as the masters and the instruments as the servants." The album was recorded in three weeks and mixed in two. Drums and Wires was named for its emphasis on the sounds of guitars and expansive drums. The title was inspired by an illustration from The Beano depicting the comic dog Gnasher playing drums and "BOOM DADA BOOM" written above him. Partrige considered using the illustration for the cover, "but it was a silly idea and 'Drums and Wires' seemed to suit the sound of the record. All drums and guitar strings." Lyrically, the album focuses on the trappings or titillations of the modern world, with several songs about submitting to external forces. Partridge's songs also centre on the impact of technology on human emotions. Musically, the album was described by Paste critic Lizzie Manno as featuring "a bold, drum-centric", "polychromatic", and "coltish" pop style, with "a skittish punk energy and fierce grooves". She went on to say its "off-kilter fusion of art rock and New