Gary Anthony James Webb AKA Gary Numan first burst onto the music scene way back in 1978 with Tubeway Army on the album of the same name, and then Replicas from which the classic Are Friends Electric single was taken. This was recently covered by the Sugarbabes with their smash hit Freak Like Me.
Shortly after this, Cars was released as Gary Numan’s first solo single. A remix of this was used some time ago on the American Express adverts.
His first solo album Pleasure Principle followed a classic album and one of my all time favourites.
Telekon brought in the 1980’s and was followed by seven more albums over the next decade. The 1990'’ brought four more albums culminating in the highly acclaimed Exile in 1997.
The year two thousand was the year that brought us the Pure album.
During this time Gary Numan was also indulging in his love of flying, taking part in aerobic displays and his well documented round the world flight that almost ended in disaster.
In 1992 he met the girl fan he was to marry in 1997.
And so to Gary Numan’s latest offering.

And so twenty-two years after his debut Gary Numan comes back to hit the listening public squarely between the eyes with a classic.
Pure reintroduces heavy guitar’s to Gary Numan’s music, going back too early the Tubeway Army style.
Numan also seems to have taken influences from collaborations he had with Fear Factory and Trent Reznor of Nine-Inch Nails, giving this album a much heavier, rockier sound. The introduction of heavy industrial sounds adds to the heavy feel of this masterpiece.
As soon as the album starts with the title track the industrial feel immediately as it starts with long low industrial sounds being joined by keyboards and eventually the guitars hit in with an almighty crash that sets the tone for the rest of the album. Walking in Shadow follows along the same musical theme but at a slower pace with Numan’s vocals have a slow and almost of a hypnotic flow to them.
Rip starts with rasping whispered lyrics from Numan before he does let rip, the song follows this pattern with rasping verses interrupted by raging choruses against a backing of thrashing guitars and bass line. Doesn’t really sound much like a description of a Gary Numan track does it?
One perfect lie brings us back a bit more to the Numan we know and love, much more melodic more synth and quieter guitar. After Rip it is a fitting track to bring the listener back to ground, it doesn’t last long though My Jesus brings us yet another twist in our journey of sound. This one has almost ballad like qualities at the start hardened by industrial sound effects building into a crescendo of chorus before smoothly descending back to ballad level again in a pattern that is repeated in many of the songs on the album.

Fallen is a strange one, by far the shortest song at just over two and a half minutes. It acts like an interlude. It is musically repetitive and the whispered lyrics are almost unintelligible.

The whole album is a mixture of sounds from quiet passages to thrashing guitars, in fact it is has such a range of sounds that it shouldn’t work, but it does very well.
Lyrically Numan talks about religion, mentally deranged people and I think some of the rest of it may be personal to himself.

Little Invitrio
Gary Numan