OMD - Classic or Dud? S&D?

As for the track - I like it, but it sounds to me like it'll work best in the context of the album.

The themes, instrumentation, emphasis on isolated samples and vocoders - this is all the pure spirit of Dazzle Ships even if the production is updated for 2017. At best the last couple of albums are a genuine return to the spirit of early 80's OMD vs. say, "If You Leave".

The first half of that track is really just straight-up Kraftwerk, circa Autobahn/Radioactivity. If you stripped down the production a bit, it could practically pass for an outtake from one of those albums.

I don't hear any detuned guitars, toy pianos, shortwave radios or acoustic instruments treated in unusual ways on this. Dazzle Ships is a record that couldn't possibly be made again. Thematically, it just strikes me as being business-as-usual OMD. 'If You Leave' was never one of their defining tracks.

Isotope is great, sounds like OMD. The military one ... that sounded like something from Dazzle Ships.

Military themes have been part of OMD's music since 'Bunker Soldiers', the first track off the first LP.

probably an unpopular opinion but "Save Me" (bonus track on History of Modern) is amazing. probably my whole track on the entire disc. idk man I'm just a sucker for a great intro

oh, and they've got a new album out today

And it's good!

Incredibly, I haven't had the opportunity to hear it yet but from what I've heard it's going to be as good as the last one, which was great.

New Numan in a fortnight too!

So yeah, I'm on my third listen to The Punishment of Luxury now, and my general feeling is like it's essentially a sort of English Electric part II but with a few surprises thrown in there ('As We Open, So We Close' in particular... fuck!) ... however, it's also a much less immediate record than English Electric. Still, I don't get any feeling that they sleepwalked their way through the making of this record - I can hear a band very much still trying to do something different (for them, at least) and a couple of the tracks here suggest that there's still new territory for them to mine and new directions for them to follow should they want to follow them.

One thing is for sure, they're not going to be able to get away with releasing another album in this mould for their next one - that's if there is a next one. If they continue, though, I'd personally like to see them make a different kind of record - start incorporating more acoustic percussion back into their sound or instruments not commonly heard on an OMD record.

Oh, and 'Robot Man' really has no place on this LP.

The last two tracks on the album - 'Ghost Star' and 'The View From Here' - are my two big favourites from this one.

It seems to have divided the fanbase straight down the middle, this one - which delights me a lot!

A couple of weeks down the line and, if I'm to be honest with myself, this latest album hasn't connected with me anywhere near as much as the previous two - it still very much has its highlights, and I applaud them for trying to branch out here and there, but the end result comes across to me as English Electric part two, but the material is mostly nowhere near as good. If there is a next album, I'd like them to open up their sound palette a little more, get rid of the computerised voices, dial down the heavy Kraftwerk worship (which sounds less refreshing on this album) and focus a little more on the songwriting before they get stuck in some sort of creative rut.

English Electric was far more refreshing to my ears than Delta Machine, but this year with so many "classic" synth acts coming back with new albums, I think Depeche Mode's Spirit and Alison Moyet's Other are superior.

I'd rank The Punishment of Luxury far ahead of Erasure's rather morose and tune-free effort this year (World be Gone) - I haven't spend enough time with the new Numan yet, or the Fader album, and haven't yet heard the new Blancmange.

just gave it a spin. lol @ me for getting all excited about a new OMD album and then forgetting about it. I think it's pretty good - kind of had the same feeling as listening to English Electric for the first time. I like that they're trying new things - "Robot Man" and "Art Eats Art" both made me smile. First two & last two tracks are great.

i'm obsessed with Architecture & Morality at the moment. "She's Leaving" has one of those classic chord progressions that is made vital and eternal here. Outro drumming on "Joan of Arc" is massive, tho I'm always a sucker for military style beats. The record comes out of the gate with the fraught paranoia of "The New Stone Age" but the uncertainty continues throughout the arrangements on the rest of the record. Finely balanced between experimental soundscapes and perfect pop songs, this is one of the finest records I've heard.

Surely this album must have influenced a lot of acts, I can hear its DNA in MGMT's new one and Kuedo's first LP.

Seeing them tomorrow, been a few years.

enjoy the show Josh, and report back if ya feel like it

Seeing them Sunday, first time!

I know I'm late to the party, but I've always wanted to big them up for "Messages". Specifically the verse that (referring to the titular messages) contains "... I'd write and tell you that I burned them all. But you never sent me your address." (beat) "And I kept them anyway."
Love that. And the way the single version comes in with a rush, establishes the synth arpeg. and that runs all the way through. Great stuff that seems to get overshadowed by "Electricity" from their early tracks.

Love Messages, especially the two manual basslines, one of which is pretty dissonant and curious at times.

any recommendations on a good album to go with after hearing architecture? i tried dazzle, but that ABC 123 song threw me off

robot man robot man robot man

doing math just as fast as he can

XP - Organisation then the debut, then try Dazzle Ships again.

Thanks!

XP - Organisation then the debut, then try Dazzle Ships again.

exactly my recommendation as well.

organisation and architecture are natural companion albums and i can't imagine liking one without liking the other. debut has some absolute gems, and then after that dazzle ships is like a bonus wonderful LP that makes much more sense once you understand what they were departing from

I know I'm late to the party, but I've always wanted to big them up for "Messages". Specifically the verse that (referring to the titular messages) contains "... I'd write and tell you that I burned them all. But you never sent me your address." (beat) "And I kept them anyway."
Love that. And the way the single version comes in with a rush, establishes the synth arpeg. and that runs all the way through. Great stuff that seems to get overshadowed by "Electricity" from their early tracks.

otm. "electricity" is a catchy as hell but whenever i listen to "messages" it's just as thrilling as the first time i heard it

This is good timing because I was wondering if I should give Junk Culture a try. I hated Locomotion bitd but I don't know any other songs from that album. I'm a huge fan of their first 4 albums. I saw them live in LA a few years ago and it was awesome.

Junk Culture is decent. Still a huge step down after the first four albums.

They were great tonight. Can't believe that last show I saw was 5 years ago. Andy is such a fun frontman, and everyone was having such a great time, band and audience alike. What a strong catalog this group has.

Organisation is the one that I've been listening to the most recently.

Junk Culture isn't a step down from the work before it - it's just different. Partly because technology had moved on.

(This idea that they lost their "experimental" side completely after Dazzle Ships is a bit of a myth, really)

I've decided that I don't actually like their most recent album all that much.

Also, Dazzle Ships wasn't really that much of a departure for those who were listening closely, anyway. If anything, it was a return to the type of material they were doing very early on in '78.

Junk Culture isn't a step down from the work before it - it's just different.

"Different" in the sense that it's not as good.

It has some clangers, 'Apollo' is terrrrrible, I listened to it again recently and was thinking that they intersect with Lowlife/Brotherhood-era New Order here and there 'Hard Day' for instance, then I realised that they got there a year or so earlier.

What is so good about Dazzle Ships imo isn't the musique concrete stuff-- which is fine-- but the unhingedness of the performances? imo? I'm thrilled every time Andy just goes for it on "International", and the sound of the tom + out-of-tune guitar being mangled on "Of All The Things We've Made", those moments convey the-frustration-with-the-very-nature-of-the-process-and-a-lack-of-care-as-to-what-people-think better than any moment on, say, Big Star's Third

For me, Andy's voice is key to the whole first four album's deal, seems obvious to say, but there is so much warmth and humanity in it, quite different to bleepy, purposefully robotic Gary Numan/John Foxx, the slate grey crooning of Ian Curtis or nagging post-punkers like Howard Devoto.

Not technically the greatest singer and a bit mannered and honky in places perhaps, but his vocal melodies really elevate the rest of the music even in it's weaker moments.

it's that and Humphries ability to write a memorable top line that enabled them to have one foot in Smash Hits and another indulging their Radioactivity era Kraftwerk studio fantasies.

What I love about Junk Culture is that they never made an album quite like it again - it's this strange mix of music which, yes, brings to mind New Order (in the sense that they were pretty much using similar equipment) but far more polished than anything New Order did prior to 1989. This is then blended with horn sections and steel drums inspired by their surroundings during recording in Montserrat, and their own experimental impluses which can not only be still heard on the album itself but on the free single that came with the original album on the B-sides - most notably 'The Avenue' ...

... anyway, Austin is wrong.

Andy's voice is key to OMD full stop, not just the first four albums.

What a coincidence -- I just wrote about them!

come around to dazzle ships in a big way, my current fav. the 2008 remaster of architecture and morality sounds great too, beefed up drums and bass

Great! Did you go back and try out the first two?

I've heard organisation which is great bhr not familiar with self titled yet. Junk culture hasn't fully grown on me yet tho

I would hit up Crush before Junk Culture perhaps.

okay thanks MaresNest, how do their later albums fare?

I love 'Dazzle Ships' a lot (though 'A&M' will always be my #1), but does anyone else find it slightly weird that its two best tracks--"Romance of the Telescope" and "Of All The Things We've Made"--were repurposed b-sides? I mean kudos to them not letting them languish as raritied, but it kind of cuts down the sense of 'DS' as some kind of coherent visionary statement album.

Silent running tho !

Well lets say two *of* its best, then : )

Good point tho sounds like :) those are fantastic songs

I've read that DS was started before they were really quite ready to make a record, hence the greater leaning toward experimentation and the repurposing of B-Sides, Radio Waves was an older, pre-OMD track iirc.