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Gary Numan - Outland Audio CD

A fair review of the Gary Numan "Outland" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Gary Numan reviews here, or go back to the Gary Numan tabs.

Gary Numan Band: Gary Numan
Title: Outland
Rating:
Release Date: 1991-02-01
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: (Interval 1) 2: Soul Protection 3: Confession 4: My World Storm 5: Dream Killer 6: Dark Sunday 7: Outland 8: Heart 9: (Interval 2) 10: From Russia Infected 11: (Interval 3) 12: Devotion 13: Whisper

One of Numan's Two Nadirs
The instrumental "Intervals" are quite nice little atmospheric soundtrack bites, but only "From Russia Infected" sticks with me through the years. This is a really poor Numan outing, best left to completists. The style here is pseudo-Minneapolis synthfunk with LOTS of obnoxious female backing vocal vamping. When that whole thing started for him, it was sort of a breath of fresh air. But 7 years later you wanted to throttle whomever was overemoting in the background of his recordings!.


In defense for a great album
And a message for "Guitar Lord": if the only thing about an album you like is the cover, you probably should just stay clear from music you have to think about. I honestly really enjoy this album: it's funk, industrial, pop, and new wave all mixed into a clever sound almost nothing of which Numan has created before or since.

Some may argue that this is just repetitive funk track after the next that seems at first tedious, but Numan seemed to really want to stick to a singular sound, which he does quite well. The album is sort of divided into three different kinds of sounds: funky upbeat tracks with strong industrial noise and percussion; ambient instrumentals (intervals); and airy ballads.

This is Numan's very first all-created by Numan album; he did the producing, writing, engineering, etc. all on his own, which marks a very important stage in his career. While his earlier album, Metal Rhythm, feels very mislead as far as style and genre, this one takes the essence of what he'd been doing for the last half decade and creates an aggressive, yet still very isolated and paranoid, funk journey (yeah, it is a weird album). Many of the tracks use clips from sci-fi films (I think mainly Blade Runner, which he's used in the past) to help accompany the futuristic sound.

The upbeat tracks are pretty similar, sure, but that's the point. The intervals are eerie, and I wish they were longer, but oh well. The ballads are actually quite good, and while I dislike ballads for all their cheesiness and lack of artistry, the ones on here are good listens.

Altogether, this album is one of the most unique in Numan's catalogue, and not one to miss for big fans. I think even getting to hear this once for more casual fans would be a good treat.

And if you do decide you like this album, try finding the instrumental album 'Human', which Numan created right before this for the film 'The Unborn'. Outland and Machine + Soul both borrow a good deal of music from Human, and it's fun to hear how some of these ideas developed.


only fans
soul protection rocks. but then it pays. well, not that much, outland a bit more. but it was the hidden tide of his sci-fi-voice. this cool sci-fi voice that reached on top on sacrifice. 90's soundtrack to only a movie that never was made.


SUPERB WHITE FUNK !!!!!
Funkier than ever before,VERY Prince-influenced,this album is a hard hitting one,with excellent guitar performance and exquisite percussion programming. This album shows the growing leanings towards funk Gary Numan had adopted circa 91. It has some nice ballads too. Starts out and out funk and gets more industrial towards the end. Gazza's voice is surprisingly less processed on most of this album's songs than on previous offerings,making for a nice,more natural variation. The sound is very good but the remastered version has gorgeous bonus tracks:River and Mistasax,which are 2 nice instrumentals,the excellent Shame single,and two remixes of My World Storm that are way better than the lp version.
Not an essential purchase for the average Numan fun but a treat for those of us who enjoy funk rock with the classic Numan signature.


Almost Unlistenable
In this respect he reminded me of Alex Chilton who had the world's ear, after the Replacements brought him new exposure, and he released "High Priest" whose low point was a cover of "Volare". I love Gary Numan and I was excited that he was finally getting his albums released in the US again.

Outland is noisy and tuneless and had no chance of reestablishing him in the US market. Great cover, though.


You can see a complete list of all Gary Numan discography, or go back to the Gary Numan tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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