Expletive Delighted! is a 1986 album by British folk rock band Fairport Convention, their fifteenth studio album since their debut in 1968. It is the band's only album consisting solely of instrumental tracks, despite the claim "Lyric sheet enclosed" on the album cover.[1]
"Ric and Maart were both writing stuff, composing these great instrumental pieces. I thought we should do something immediately, catch the moment. So we put out an all instrumental album, Expletive Delighted. I really wanted to show everyone just what these new chaps could do, how brilliantly they could play. ... The line-up meant we could tour again, it meant we had new material for Cropredy, it meant there was a Fairport again. So from 1986 on, Cropredy wasn't just a reunion festival any more. We had a band."[2]
This new lineup would last for the next eleven years, the most stable of all of Fairport's configurations to that point.[3]
Reception
Allmusic's reviewer described Expletive Delighted! as "alternately enjoyable and maddening", criticising the prominence of Dave Mattacks's drums in the mix, while praising "Portmeirion" and the title track as "delicate and beautiful as any work that this version of the band has done".[4]
Track listing
Side one
"The Rutland Reel/Sack the Juggler" (Ric Sanders) - 3:20
"The Cat on the Mixer/Three Left Feet" (Maartin Allcock) - 3:37
