In the Golden Autumn from 1983 kicks off with “Renee”, a driving pop song anchored by a drum machine and shimmering guitar jangle that recalls a rougher version of the Police at their peppiest. Having released several cassette albums prior to this one, Newell was working as a kitchen porter at this point, depressed and broke after a book deal gone bad. If Newell was in a dark place at this point in his life, he was still writing insanely catchy earworm pop songs. From the triumphant acoustic bounce of “A Halloway Person” to the Beatles Revolver-era stomp of “Please Don’t Step on My Rainbow” to the delightfully demented dance rock of “Marilyn on a Train”, In the Golden Autumn is stacked to the brim with hit songs from an alternate universe. Newell sounds genuinely hopeful throughout this album with only “Ghosts in Doorways” and the eerie sonic experiment “The Autumn Cornfield” providing moments of darkness. Newell brings a huge amount of sonic experimentation in to the pop song templates of In the Golden Autumn resulting in some of his most interesting work. “Sandstorm in Paradise” is a maelstrom of guitar meltdowns and vocal freak-outs over an eerie synth line that never takes away from the song’s underlying groove.
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