Empty in this room: Telephone and I are two organs (“Do You Need The Service?”) hanging from the same electrical outlet on the wall. Alarm-like, we catch Feeling, the Foreign Particle as it falls. But we’re splintered when the “Machmen” lap us over in Max Factor romance (see cover) — ah, such dry-hump decadences — or some kinda crisp come, to reflect the night’s day-glo metropolis, not the dread articulate in each other’s faces. We clap and we gait; take cold hand in mine, and we chant.
But Gary and I want the marrow. For as much as the songs moog ma-sheen the o-bleak lyrical ‘visions’ (equal parts cautionary tale and gadget turn-on, a knowing contradiction), Numan’s music is the more concerted effort — check the instrumentals. It’s also got a human touch: At first appearing circular, his keyboards occasionally step off-beat the way his queasy vocals tend sweet.
File under David Bowie kith ‘n’ kin.
Rating: B+
