After a month of posting metal albums and videos, and two months prior to that researching, reviewing and listening for Metal Month, I’m about all metalled out, so am ready for something of a change. Bit of a rest, as they say, so I’d like to turn in a totally different direction. Of course, I do love heavy metal and it will always form a vital and important part of my journals, but right now I’m ready to listen to something other than screaming guitars, thumping drums and singers who growl howl or shriek. So, to borrow an image idea from The Batlord…
I have never been a fan of electronic music, as most of you know, though I’m beginning to make small inroads into a genre I had never really thought I would be interested in. When I were a lad, bands like Human League, Heaven 17, Pet Shop Boys and Fiction Factory were all treated with equal disdain by me, who was a long-haired rocker and metaller, and as a workmate labelled these outfits, as “puff bands”. I had neither the desire nor the interest in exploring their music. I still don’t really, but when I heard about this album I thought I’d give it a go, for novelty value if nothing else.
All I know of Visage is encapsulated in one track --- well, two, but mostly “Fade to grey”. Everyone my age knows that, and it for me typified what these sort of new romantic/electronic/”puff bands” were all about
: droning, soulless, lifeless drivel that made you want to slash your wrists and just depressed the hell out of you. It seems they have had something of an interesting career though.
Hearts and knives --- Visage --- 2013 (Blitz Ckub)
Strictly speaking, we’re talking about Visage Mk II here. Seems the original band, of whom the mighty Midge Ure was once a member, split back in 1985, after their third album, released the previous year, bombed in every way. Steve Strange, founder of the band, hung around with various projects but eventually got the band back together, so to speak, in 2004 but no new material surfaced until 2007, and that only one track. So this is only their fourth album, with a gap of just short of thirty years between this and the last one. That has to be the longest any band has left their fans waiting. I mentioned the delay between Helloween’s “Keeper of the seven keys” parts two and three, as it were, but that was nothing compared to this.
And it’s not the same band. Strange is there, of course, but longtime founder members Rusty Egan and the man who later found fame with Ultravox and of course Live Aid is nowhere to be seen either. Essentially this is a new band, formed by Strange under the Visage name, so whether we can expect a radical departure from the downbeat electro of their eighties music or not I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Of course, the whole scene has changed now; electronic music is still popular certainly, in some ways even moreso than when Steve and the boys trod the boards. But it has undergone something of a revolution and is barely recognisable from the likes of Ultravox, Depeche Mode and Bronskibeat, who commanded the charts and ruled the radio airwaves back then.
It’s a boppy, uptempo beginning that puts me more in mind of Human League or Ultravox really to get us underway as “Never enough” announces the rebirth of Visage. And it’s not half bad. Definite shades of Phil Oakey here. Interesting that there’s quite a lot of guitar, though in fairness there are a total of five keyboard players used on the album, so it’s very much keys and synth-oriented, but then you’d expect that. It’s almost a return to the heyday of the New Romantic period in the 1980s; certainly a lot of restrained energy and while it’s hardly rock and roll, I could see people dancing to this. Good start.
Strange is in good voice for a man who hasn’t sung in a band since 2007, and yet I can’t shake the comparison to the Human League frontman. Maybe they just all sounded the same? This similarity in singing style continues into “Shameless fashion”, where the synths take control more, especially the synth bass so recognisable from the music of that period. It’s still relatively uptempo though, and there is a decent guitar solo in the song. Interesting to see Visage kind of mock themselves, or at least the clothing fad at the time. A little slower then is “She’s electric (Coming around) with some nice backing vocals, mostly courtesy of Lauren Duvall. Little keyboard riff there right out of Tubeway Army, and we’re into “Hidden sign” with a nice funky bassline and the tempo rising again. Very synth-centric again. A spoken vocal section brings to mind Neil Tennant’s work with the Pet Shop Boys and again there are nice backing vox from Duvall.
“On we go”. No, that’s not me saying on we go, though on we do go. It’s the title of the next track, and it has a nice sort of atmospheric, almost organ sound reminiscent of Kraftwerk and a big dark bassy synth carrying the tune in a somewhat ominous vein. Could very well be an instrumental, as we’re halfway through the song’s four minutes and so far no --- ah no wait. There’s the vocal now. Very slow and almost menacing as the deep bassy synth propels the track, with another, almost vocal synth adding its own flavour to the tune. Probably the bleakest track so far on an album I expected to be fairly downbeat, and which so far has not really been. Though again I admit I know little of Visage’s work; “Fade to grey” may not have been typical of them.
Something like cello or violin, probably synth-based, opens “Dreamer I know”, the dark mood dispelled as the pop sensibility returns to the album, and it could almost be Johnny Hates Jazz or Curiosity Killed the Cat, or any of another hundred eighties pop bands; bit bland really and probably my least favourite track so far. Yeah, but it does make my toes tap, have to admit. “Lost in static” has another nice atmospheric, almost ambient introduction, some soft piano ushering in the bass as the song gets going, tripping along nicely. Squelchy, bassy synth then takes control as the vocal comes in, and Strange is more subdued here, though truth to tell this is not the sort of music where you hear too much in the way of passion: a little mechanised, a little synthetic, a little --- well, let’s be honest: a little soulless.
“I am watching” is not a lot better: very generic by-the-numbers electropop I feel, sort of mid-paced but not a lot to make me remember it. The rhythm almost puts me in mind of the dreaded Stock, Aitken and Waterman, though I wouldn’t be that disrespectful to any band as to link them with the awful Hit Factory. Still, it’s close. “Diaries of a madman” is in fact the one track that presaged the return of Visage, the one Steve Strange recorded way back in 2007, and so is the oldest song on this album. Nice guitar intro, but then it descends into very much a Human League rip-off song; I could hear this on “Dare”. The album then ends on a low-key ballad, not at all bad, with a nice soft texture and a smooth line flowing through it.
TRACKLISTING
1. Never enough
2. Shameless fashion
3. She’s electric (Coming around)
4. Hidden sign
5. On we go
6. Dreamer I know
7. Lost in static
8. I am watching
9. Diaries of a madman
10. Breathe life
Yeah, definitely not for me. I’m sure Visage’s fans, waiting for three decades for a new album will be delighted with it, and it will probably do well overall. But it’s not my kind of music. Echoing the dislike I had for electronic pop music back when I was young, this comes across as sterile, dull and pretty lifeless. There’s no doubt they’re good at what they do, all accomplished musicians and Steve Strange is a good singer, but there’s nothing here that excites or even vaguely interests me. I may be looking somewhat guiltily in the direction of electronica, thinking I haven’t exactly given it a fair shake down the years, and be searching for bands I can enjoy, but Visage won’t be one of them.
Unfortunately, a review that has to consist more of knives than hearts, I’m sorry to say.