From Here is the fifteenth studio album by British rock band New Model Army, released on 23 August 2019 by Attack Attack Records in the United Kingdom and by earMUSIC worldwide. The album was recorded on the Norwegian island of Giske at the Ocean Sound Recordings studio, with inspiration drawn from the isolation of the environment. The album reached number 13 in the UK album charts on the week of release.
The classic self-titled debut by Gary Numan's Tubeway Army was finally reissued by Beggars Banquet, who have done a masterful job remastering the tracks and adding a live set from 1978 as a bonus. In the past, many have felt that Numan's debut disc didn't measure up to his later triumphs (1979's Replicas, 1980's Telekon, etc.), but listening to it today, you discover that it's the most underrated of all his early albums. Numan & the Tubeway Army were one of the first new wave/punk bands (along with Kraftwerk and Devo) to successfully fuse robotic synthesizers with rock & roll. Gary Numan's guitar riffing is more prominent here than on any other of his albums, which gives the tunes a splendid Ziggy Stardust feel at times. Kicking things off with several strong compositions – "Listen to the Sirens," "The Life Machine," and "Friends" – the album sags momentarily in the middle ("My Love Is Liquid"), but soon returns to its high standards with "Are You Real?" and "Jo the Waiter." The reissue of Tubeway Army wraps up with the 13-track Living Ornaments '78: Live at the Roxy set, which was previously released only as a bootleg.
Ginger Baker's mid-'70s profile took another unexpected turn following Cream's blues-rock blood and thunder and his Afro-beat matchups with Fela Kuti. He formed this straight-ahead power trio with the guitar- and bass-playing brother team of Adrian and Paul Gurvitz, who'd briefly lit up the '60s U.K. charts as Gun (of "Race With the Devil" fame). Such a step might have seemed subversively normal for Baker, but he and the brothers had an undeniable chemistry; not surprisingly, their debut album is a self-assured, aggressive affair. "Help Me" and "I Wanna Live Again" are punchy and succinct; so are the hard-driving instrumentals "Love Is" and its funkier cousin, "Phil 4."
In the U.S., Gary Numan is remembered as a one-hit-wonder, while back home in his native England, he continued to crank out hit after hit and became a superstar in the process. His icy space-age persona and sound may be forever associated with early-80's British new wave (Flock of Seagulls, early Duran Duran, etc.), but he was the originator, and today seems pretty darned original. Numan was a scholar of the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust-era, and used Bowie's space alien approach as a starting point. While retaining his futuristic lyrics, Gary stripped Ziggy's sound free of the distorted guitar riffing and posturing, and replaced it with clinical synthesizers and a standoffish stage persona. His music also gives off a paranoid vibe at times, as evidenced on the hits "I Die: You Die" and "Are 'Friends' Electric?" But Numan's songs can also sedate you ("Down in the Park"), while other times sneak up on you (the unexpected punk rocker "Bombers"). And of course there's his sole U.S. hit, "Cars," which sounds like a not so distant ancestor to fellow futuristic weirdos Devo.
As History: The Singles 85-91's title makes plain, this compilation bundles up all the group's singles released between these dates. 1985 was a turning point for the band, the year New Model Army relocated from the indie Abstract label to the majors and EMI. Thus fans will obviously have to look elsewhere for their earlier singles, particularly the ferocious "Vengeance," the best of their pre-EMI releases. But the six years bundled up here were just as stellar. The group released a dozen singles during this period, and the A-sides all appear here in chronological order, kicking off with the blind fury of "No Rest," down into the bitter irony of "51st State," through the desolation of science gone insane of "White Coats," across the outcasts' anthem of "Vagabonds," into the nostalgic valleys of "Green and Grey," diving into the barely suppressed rage of "Purity," and ending live in "Space." Americans may be surprised to find that every single one of New Model Army's singles charted in the U.K., albeit outside the Top 25. But that's a moot point; while Britain was in the midst of a Tory revolution that turned much of England's innate culture to dust (Scotland, Wales, and Ulster remained more immutable to their efforts), New Model Army soldiered on, a voice raging in the wilderness.