Search - Gary Numan :: Jagged

A solid and provocative entry from Numan

Shaw N. Gynan | Bellingham, WA USA | 06/19/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Gary Numan's 17th studio album follows the same themes and sound explored in Sacrifice, Exile, and Pure. These are all explorations of the social function of religion, and its relationship to love. One need pay no attention to the negative reviews of this disc. It is not simply a repeat of the previous three musical explorations of the dark side. The opening number clocks in at 5:19, introduced by a reverberant acoustic and dark lyrics. Several writers have criticized the extended, atmospheric introductions. I disagree. They are instead highly creative and evocative. Pressure invokes the color black in association with an apparently disastrous end to a love affair. At 5:47, Fold is a good follow-up, a bit less negative than the first. Halo is the third strong entry in a row. After a mysterious, pulsating introduction, Numan breaks out into a less comprehensible vocal line about failed love that questions God's commitment to humanity. The sound is heavily processed, and Numan's voice is buried under innumerable layers of electronic harmony. The first three songs share a minor-key, falling melodic line. At 4:17, the relatively short Halo gives way to another echoic soundscape, filled with distant howls. This is the 6:02 Slave. The coda is especially impressive, the echos dying away to leave nothing but electric piano. The fifth piece is In a Dark Place, 6:06. Here Numan reveals a far more open and questioning voice than in Pure, or even Exile. Speaking of God, he cries: "Sometimes I call out for you, and sometimes I'm afraid." Haunted (5:29) begins with a sound reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. The lyrics of this song effectively evoke how love and death are related: "And this is not my face, not my voice, not my life, It belongs to you." At 7:01, the longest song on this album, Blind, features yet another spooky beginning, and another melodic line in quite the same vein as those of the previous songs is introduced. The blackness of the opening number is now revisited, and the referent of the metaphor becomes clearer. As in previous outings, Numan is exploring failed love in the larger, theoretical context. In this setting, though, he is significantly less arrogant, more beaten, guilt-ridden, and desperate. In Blind, as in the other numbers, this is presented in a wall of throbbing, electronica rock. At 5:14. "Before You Hate It" is a relatively subdued rocker. "Once is always so don't call me," the love-obsessed singer commands. The next song, Melt, at 5:18, features a monster bass line. There is a bit of choral backup in this appealing song: "Sometimes I wonder if a soul can try." Here, Numan is at his most explicitly anti-religious: "I don't think He died for me." The 6:02 Scanner returns to the theme of love, and the melodic line actually rises a bit, giving a slightly stronger and optimistic feel to the music. Jagged, 5:23 opens with yet more industrial atmospherics, giving way to a synthesized orchestral sound and a whispered lyric. The relationship between love and God is made clearer. The songwriter rejects the condemnation by the church of unstated sexual feelings or actions. The single bonus track on this disc is a catchy, busy 4:44 remix of Fold. While none of the ideas here is particularly shocking or new in light of previous ventures down the path of a religious iconoclast, the sound has evolved. These songs will mix nicely with gyrating bodies on a high-tech dance floor. At 65:42. this is yet another generously filled and highly professional exploration.

Having observed all of the above regarding Numan's latest entry, there is much that is appealing about pre-Sacrifice Numan, namely a generally large assemblage of excellent studio musicians. I remember particularly the appealing ways in which saxophone and fretless bass were used to impart a jazzy, improvised feel to so many Numan records. Instead, Numan identifies a hook, appears to program it, and then lets it run. I enjoy the hypnotic effect, the mesmerizing atmospherics, the sheer dimensionality of the music, but there is much to be enjoyed in the diversity of musical influences that characterize the huge middle section of Numan's output, from Telekon to Machine and Soul. I would love to see Numan retreat a bit from the mechanized virtuosity where he currently resides, to a community-oriented, collaborative approach. There is no doubt in my mind that the multiple masterpieces that Numan has produced all have that professional cooperation and creation in common. I should add a clarification, because there is a large group of musicians involved in this epic production. Jagged, the title piece seems to let other voices, literally and figuratively, participate. As a result, I have upped my rating to five stars. It may be dark, but it sure is a masterpiece and holds up well under repeated listening."

An Extension of His More Recent Work

Cary_Granite | New York, NY United States | 03/22/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you like Numan's more recent stuff (Exile, Pure), you'll probably like this. If you're looking for his 70s-80s sound, you might not. I like his overall body of work, with various high points sprinkled throughout, from Down in the Park through Dominion Day. Some people just want to hear rehashes of Cars. Not me. I like the "dark" and "heavy" quality of the more recent stuff (and, yes, I like Nine Inch Nails, so you know where I'm coming from). One thing that always works across the board for Numan is his unique voice. No matter what the music sounds like his instantly recognizable voice stands out."

A sound up above the rest

James Roach | Albuquerque, New Mexico | 03/22/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The first I heard this album I thought it a little too new, and didn't fully like it like Rammstein's new album Rosenrot, but a couple of songs into it, and on better speakers I realized it a good album. A second listening, and it fully grew on me. This album to me shows Numan's ability to upstage any artist in the field of synthpop, industrial, and rock when it comes to producing a soundscape of complex sounds that you can all hear individually rather then everything being thrown in like some grunge of powerchords being hit off key.



The lyrics are always personal to what's going on. I can't stand the other reviews in here constently comparing Numan to Manson, NiN, etc. He's been writing like this before any of these bands had a thought of writing something dark and personal. Numan was doing this when Brian Warner was still in christian school, and when Reznor was still covering Billy Idol. Everyone closely related to his genre of music knows who Gary Numan is, and look up to him. Numan doesn't copy others. Others took what he did, and made it their own. When numan came back to rework things he did what he wanted to do...make things a bit darker. He took what people did, but mainly what he did in the past, reworked it to make it better. Exile was a start, and Hybrid and Pure were what we knew he was fully wanting, and to me Jagged was the perfection of this.



Jagged was beautifully written, engineered, and though tends to sound the same is done to create a dark etherial atmoshere to trap you fully into the world he's created. It's nothing knew as that is his style, and it's worked so well for 2 decades, and though the sounds have changed the attitude has not. Jagged is the perfection of Numan's new breed of work in an evolving genre of music he helped start, and he's still in it to show people he's still one of the best at it."