The Fixx

The FIXX return with their first album in nearly a decade, the excellent Every Five Seconds. Featuring the band’s original lineup, the songs here still possess the power and urgency of their classic era work…

1011 Woodland is the eighth studio album by British new wave band the Fixx, released in 1999. All but the last three tracks are re-recordings of previous songs done by the band, largely in an acoustic and modern form…

From the return of Dan K. Brown – the bassist on all their classic efforts from Reach the Beach (1983) to Ink (1991) – to its George Underwood cover art (the painter whose work adorned Reach the Beach and Phantoms), Beautiful Friction is a return to form for the Fixx, the synth-pop-but-almost-prog-rock group who made socially aware angst fly up the charts in the '80s with "Red Skies," "One Thing Leads to Another," and "Saved by Zero." This reunion effort is without a surefire hit like those, and at first listen, it is a bit light on hooks, but lead single "Anyone Else" is strong enough to beckon any longtime fan's return, and the skeletal, funky workout called "Girl with No Ceiling" brings to mind the Phantoms era – kinetic in an "Are We Ourselves" style.

Reach the Beach is a significant step forward from the Fixx's debut album, Shuttered Room, simply because the band can now craft immediately accessible, incessantly catchy pop/rock melodies. "One Thing Leads to Another" has a big, ringing guitar hook hammered home by the dance beat, while "Saved by Zero" and "The Sign of Fire" are cool, robotic slices of synth pop. Although the rest of the album isn't quite as catchy as those three hits, Reach the Beach remains a pleasant collection of immaculately produced and stylishly danceable new wave.

Reach the Beach is a significant step forward from the Fixx's debut album, Shuttered Room, simply because the band can now craft immediately accessible, incessantly catchy pop/rock melodies. "One Thing Leads to Another" has a big, ringing guitar hook hammered home by the dance beat, while "Saved by Zero" and "The Sign of Fire" are cool, robotic slices of synth pop. Although the rest of the album isn't quite as catchy as those three hits, Reach the Beach remains a pleasant collection of immaculately produced and stylishly danceable new wave.