Gary Numan – Exile – 1997
Exile opens with the industrial return-of-Jesus-Christ song “Dominion Day”. It’s angry and ominous, almost confessional, bleak and harkens back to the previous album, Sacrifice, as a template for Gary’s revitalized direction. In other words, the funk is dead, bring on the dire.
Once again Numan is in control of almost all the instruments, save a guitar here or keyboard there. This abject control, in addition to his singular theme, that God and the Devil operate on the same playing field (and questions what we think of each, namely God’s “goodness”), succeeds in creating one of the darkest and most satisfying records of Gary’s career, or at least of the previous 10 years.
The textures and rhythms on some of Exile could be interpreted as almost middle eastern. At least that’s what I hear in the drum programming. An earthy, dusty, ethereal and sexual pounding. Again I am listening to the extended versions of all these tracks so each song is about 1/3 longer than the original release. I don’t know if that matters. There’s a hypnotic quality to all of Numan’s late 90s material and it makes for a relatively easy but terrifying listen.
Numan excoriates himself in interviews about albums like Machine + Soul as well he should. He was pandering to what he thought would work for sales and the result was way below par.
This is him, on the other hand, talking about Exile:
“”Exile” to me is one big horror story. Personally. I don’t believe in God at all, but if I’m wrong and there is a God, what kind of god would it be who would give us the world we live in? It certainly cannot be a good deity. At best God would have to be cruel, selfish, and he would have to have a huge ego. “Thou shalt not worship any other gods before me.” That is just one huge ego trip.”
Certainly he is focused.
Exile is a drum-loop heavy record and you might even recognize the track “Dark” from various movie trailers of the decade as well as “Dark City” and some video games.
I like Exile in theory a little more than in practice but that’s a paltry dismissal because I’m not a big fan of industrial rock. As that sort of stuff goes, it’s very satisfying.
It also sounds like a good album to _____ to. After all, it’s about God n’ shit.
Right?
Grade: B+
ASide: Dominion Day, Absolution
BlindSide: Dark, The Angel Wars
DownSide:
