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.

2001-10-13 - Joe Cormack

track list Me! I Disconnect From You Are 'Friends' Electric? The Machman Praying To The Aliens Down In The Park You Are In My Vision Replicas It Must Have Been Years When The Machines Rock I Nearly Married A Human Do You Need The Service? The Crazies Only A Downstat We Have A Technical We Are So Fragile I Nearly Married A Human 2