Gary Numan – Outland – 1991
First off let me say that there is nothing inherently “wrong” with Outland. Some songs, like “Soul Protection” are actually just fine. They are cold, industrial piffle, but they don’t out and out suck.
It’s the most Sci-Fi of Gary’s Groove-Metal albums. But it’s not very good. Allmusic guide gives it 3 stars but no actual review. And that’s sort of a telltale sign of the music industry just giving up on him in general. Outland doesn’t stay with you, doesn’t mean anything and, were it not for the abundance of sci-fi movie samples, it would be of little interest at all.
Which saddens me because I really liked New Anger. But, like I said, it doesn’t SUCK it’s just not very memorable. Some tracks, “Dream Killer” & “Dark Sunday” might actually have had some resonance had Gary not been spending the past decade mining the same sound and rewriting the same song over and over.
It’s really a shame because Numan could have mounted something of a comeback if he built on the sounds and songs from Metal Rhythm.
“Heart” is a pretty ballad, the kind we’ve come to expect now. They aren’t surprising and therefore I find them useless. But that’s a really harsh word to describe an album that isn’t awful.
If you enjoy Numan’s soundscaping and over-production then you will like this record. But you don’t ever need to hear it. I don’t think Gary needs to hear it. I don’t think he listened to it while he was making it.
Even though he’s grabbing snippets of sci-fi flicks like Blade Runner and Terminator, Aliens and Predator, there’s no real cohesive focus on the record. And something like “Devotion” is just downright awful. An exasperating and desperate plea for relevance in the funk world from someone who has no busy trying to play there.
Grade D
ASide: Soul Protection
BlindSide: Heart
DownSide: From Russia Infected
